Mustapha00
Well-Known Member
Despite (or maybe perhaps?) of the Random Acts Of Snark, this is a very interesting topic.
I am not and never really have been a "purist", if by "purist" one means fealty to the game as initially rolled out (excluding patches which fix the inevitable bugs). If a game does not expand and redefine its content, it's not going to be around very long because its competitors will.
Every single MMORPG on which I am aware instituted "easy buttons" that made the task of playing their game less burdensome on its players, be it EverQuest, WoW, Dark Age of Camelot, Lord Of The Rings Online...all of them. Yes, making some things easier and more accessible for newer players did tend to irritate older players, as the older folks had to achieve whatever their goal happened to be without the benefit of the new rules. On the flip side, those "easy buttons" often translated to new subscribing players, which seemed most often to outnumber those who quit in protest. As a game developer has to expand the player base in order to pay the bills, that's just good business practice in my opinion. And that comes from someone who has both benefited from those "easy buttons" and also as someone who was hurt by them.
An example: Dark Age of Camelot had a very robust Crafting system. You had to acquire higher level materials in order to craft the best weapons or armor. You had two ways of doing this: either salvage the materials from appropriately-leveled loot or by purchasing what you needed at vendors. When I started on my path as a Leathercrafter in the game, the highest level materials required venturing into open PvP areas in which the vendors who sold those materials were located. Even at max level in the game, such a trip solo was suicide, so you had to enlist others to make the run with you, even to the point that a Guild of mine would schedule group runs once or twice a week in which most of the higher level players would escort us crafters to the vendors. Very late in my time in the game, the devs changed this so that even the highest-tier vendors were located within your particular Realm, so no more confronting enemy players in your quest to obtain materials. To me, who had increased my skill under the old rules, this was a massive Easy Button, but it also meant that it was easier to increase my own skill and it also freed up my Guildies to do things they wanted to do other than run us as escorts. But I can certainly understand why others might see that as lessening their own achievements of becoming Legendary status Crafters.
My bottom line is that I suppose I am a good deal more ambivalent than others as to how I'd feel about a given update here in FoR making some aspect of the game easier for players. While I am certainly not above a wee bit of resentment that others might have to spend less time doing something than I had to. I just can't see that as enough reason to quit the game in protest. I suppose that clearly marks me as a "non-purist".
I am not and never really have been a "purist", if by "purist" one means fealty to the game as initially rolled out (excluding patches which fix the inevitable bugs). If a game does not expand and redefine its content, it's not going to be around very long because its competitors will.
Every single MMORPG on which I am aware instituted "easy buttons" that made the task of playing their game less burdensome on its players, be it EverQuest, WoW, Dark Age of Camelot, Lord Of The Rings Online...all of them. Yes, making some things easier and more accessible for newer players did tend to irritate older players, as the older folks had to achieve whatever their goal happened to be without the benefit of the new rules. On the flip side, those "easy buttons" often translated to new subscribing players, which seemed most often to outnumber those who quit in protest. As a game developer has to expand the player base in order to pay the bills, that's just good business practice in my opinion. And that comes from someone who has both benefited from those "easy buttons" and also as someone who was hurt by them.
An example: Dark Age of Camelot had a very robust Crafting system. You had to acquire higher level materials in order to craft the best weapons or armor. You had two ways of doing this: either salvage the materials from appropriately-leveled loot or by purchasing what you needed at vendors. When I started on my path as a Leathercrafter in the game, the highest level materials required venturing into open PvP areas in which the vendors who sold those materials were located. Even at max level in the game, such a trip solo was suicide, so you had to enlist others to make the run with you, even to the point that a Guild of mine would schedule group runs once or twice a week in which most of the higher level players would escort us crafters to the vendors. Very late in my time in the game, the devs changed this so that even the highest-tier vendors were located within your particular Realm, so no more confronting enemy players in your quest to obtain materials. To me, who had increased my skill under the old rules, this was a massive Easy Button, but it also meant that it was easier to increase my own skill and it also freed up my Guildies to do things they wanted to do other than run us as escorts. But I can certainly understand why others might see that as lessening their own achievements of becoming Legendary status Crafters.
My bottom line is that I suppose I am a good deal more ambivalent than others as to how I'd feel about a given update here in FoR making some aspect of the game easier for players. While I am certainly not above a wee bit of resentment that others might have to spend less time doing something than I had to. I just can't see that as enough reason to quit the game in protest. I suppose that clearly marks me as a "non-purist".