Why Casual Friendly Would Stop ARR From Dying

[Jynx]

I don't mind putting in tons of hours. But i dislike dungeons. Yet nearly every elite piece of gear in modern mmo's is from dungeons. Why can't i spend time soloing whenever I feel like it to get good gear?

Because a good game should have multiple avenues to play content and seperate rewards for each of them. Let solo players get some cool stuff that only they can attain and give group players some cool stuff only they can attain.

Personally Housing, Gardening, and other things in ARR seem to be aimed at the solo-player that if they invest their time will get greater rewards. Lev-quests will always exist as a form of solo-battle content and I'm sure many quests will do the same.

Group content (Dungeons, raids) will have their own rewards and incentives to do them, if you make it all attainable by playing solo you remove the need to group and encourage people to be anti-social in a game genre designed to be played with others. Much like how I dislike SE encouraging segregation with the regional servers, I dislike encouraging people to play by themselves to do everything.

Star Wars Galaxy plays like a single player game with optional multiplayer features, it's part and parcel why the game flopped hard after people ran out of content.

[IloveYouPumpkin]

Gardening

Sorry I have to interrupt... ; ;

Gardening? ^___^

[Duelle]

Sorry I have to interrupt... ; ;

Gardening? ^___^

Indeed. My BS meter went into the red from reading that one.

[Chardrizard]

In the live letter Yoshi said he didnt want housing to be focused on agricultural aspect alone. That hints towards gardening.

[yoshikwalla]

"Modern MMOs" can last. Unoriginal WoW clones that fail to keep their customer base satisfied don't. Don't mix the two up - there is a difference.

As long as this game satisfies its base, markets out after the game's launch (most games have huge marketing budgets before launch, but don't market while the game is still out, which is a big problem), works towards standing out from the crowd, frequently updates with new content, and pays attention to the opinions of its community, then the idea of F2P won't even exist.

[urhryu]

believe me, in the end, casuals still complained...y do they need to spend 1 year to get stuff hardcore can get within weeks...
believe me haha.

[Jynx]

Indeed. My BS meter went into the red from reading that one.

While we have no information on gardening itself, it's been ham fistedly regarded towards. Wether we have such a system at launch is obviously up in the air with no confirmation but it would be hard to dismiss how heavilly Yoshida emphasized agriculture during the Live letter on housing.

[Alerith]

Well...it was a toss up between Rokien or Azuryamber for which of them was gonna post next...

[Duelle]

While we have no information on gardening itself, it's been ham fistedly regarded towards. Wether we have such a system at launch is obviously up in the air with no confirmation but it would be hard to dismiss how heavilly Yoshida emphasized agriculture during the Live letter on housing.

I was reacting more to the comment about it counting as "solo content" within the context of character progression. Which would very much be BS.

[SkyeWindbinder]

Well, when it all comes down to it, those who have more time to invest into the game are always going to be the first to reap the rewards from an mmo. And to be quite frank, that's the way it should be. That time that people are investing into the game, they don't just sit there twiddling their thumbs. They are at work in dungeons, crafting, fighting monsters, or whatever else they have to do in order to acquire what they're going for. If you don't have the time to invest the work, then that's too bad. And there's no real reason why a "casual path" to high-end loot should even be put into the game. Either you can do it or you can't. End of story.

As for casual content and rewards, that's already going to be in the game. I mean, we have chocobo breeding, housing, crafting, just a large number of things that can reap huge rewards for the solo and casual style play. So, I think the game has that end covered as well.