SE enough of the treadmill, please make the game more interesting!

[Delily]

No.. he is pointing out that the gaming industry assumes everyone is mentally handicapped and needs their hand held through every single thing. Making fights DDR levels because how would people ever learn if it isn't perfectly predictable. Hand holding you through every stage of leveling by having you follow yellow ! points. etc etc.

Are you familiar with Scott Jennings, a.k.a Lun the Mad? If not, I'd recommend looking him. Sadly, I can't give you a direct reference to his article, but he wrote something that is pertinent to this. Basically, players will cry about how much they want difficulty, and how truly boring the current encounters are. The reality is the more challenging something is, the fewer people will actually attempt. Obviously, this will appeal to a certain type of player, but that type is definitely not the majority, despite appearances. I mean, what do you want? Bosses that have learning algorithms? Do you know that result in bosses simply using the strongest attack available on the healers to wipe the raid? That will pretty much mean no one will ever fight that boss.

The truth is that if only 5% of your player-base can reasonably expect to run the current content, that's a whole lot of wasted resources.

On that note, I find it amusing that the "hardcore raiders" are complaining that this game is not challenging enough. The designers were, and are, very clear the game is currently aimed at newer players and "filthy casuals". What exactly were you expecting?

The reality is that this "garage band syndrome". WoW essentially proved that MMOs don't have to be niche products that measure subscriptions in terms of tens of thousands, or ever hundreds of thousands. The "veteran MMO gamer" that is referred to in your signature may not like that, but seriously, this is a business, the point is to make money.