FPS gamers build skyscrapers, MMO gamers fling poo, film at 11
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Game mechanics, New titles, Opinion
This was the moment when Taldren threw up his hands and admitted something that should have been clear given his upright posture and relatively hairless body: He was not originally an MMO gamer. In fact, he had come from the realm of first person shooters, and looks in on us scratching his head and watching MMO gamers "wiping their asses with leaves". This is a man who loves his keystrokes with a fiery passion. And why aren't MMO gamers real gamers? Writes Taldren, "MMO gamers are people who generally don't enjoy playing their games."
There it is. Real gamers play because they love playing games. We MMO gamers play MMOs because we don't ... like ... games? We have to admit to some confusion. Maybe Alex will stop by and clear this up.
[Via MMO Gamers]
_thumbnail.jpg "Aion Beta: Asmodian Ascension Quest")
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
easybakeevan said on 10:56AM 5-13-2008
He may have failed to finish his point, but none the less the point is there to be made.
MMO gamers are hooked on the sense of achievement their games provide for them. You can not honestly tell me doing a quest of finding 12 gopher nuts, with a drop rate of 1/100 is fun. There are very exciting, and fun elements of mmos, but the majority of FPS game is exciting, and competitive action that can provide intrinsic entertainment. The MMO may be seen as not as fun because it provides extrinsic rewards in the game for huge amounts of time invested. Those amounts of time get larger and larger to fulfill the given reward, which makes us all feel like druggies doesn't it.
The only savior for MMO's is that it is completely immersive and truly lets you escape for (hopefully safe amounts of time) in order to enjoy the life of another in whatever storyline you are playing. Coupled with that is an intense competitive edge that FPS brings. The only problem there is FPS takes a different type of skill that involves reaction times, and coordination. MMO's provide very static knowledge of stats and damage counts, and how those stats and damage counts interact with other avatars. It is a much more mathematic type of competition. This can be seen a unequal, but if you really think about it they both take a skill, whether intellectual or instinctual.
In conclusion, MMO's and FPS games form entirely real, and meaningful forms of competition and skill, but MMO's fall short in their ability to provide intrinsic rewards, which makes the FPS game ultimately more enjoyable. That is not to say that MMO's are not enjoyable, but the fluff that goes on, on your way to the extrinsic rewards, makes us all feel a bit like a dog on a treadmill chasing a piece of meat tied to the post in front of him.
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Inscrutibob said on 11:06AM 5-13-2008
I cannot twitch as fast as talented FPS players, therefore I shall put my head on the railroad tracks.
And again with my constant refrain - you have fun the way you want to and I'll have fun the way I want to, and neither of us needs to try to convince the other to change. Or be ashamed. Or anything.
Why is this so hard to understand?
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easybakeevan said on 11:19AM 5-13-2008
This does not concern the whether people ultimately have fun, it breaks down the reasons why people may feel like they have more fun in either an MMO or an FPS.
There is no part of my post, anything that states MMO's are more fun than FPS. Though it does state the intrinsic to extrinsic differences in rewards that differentiates them.
What your statement does is just begs the question, and avoids the statement all together. If you feel that way then you have no reason to post this, since you don't feel anyone needs convincing. Therefore, no one even needs to know your opinion that you would like to "have fun the way I like to have fun".
These games ARE FUN. What is up for grabs is how are they fun, and does either have the ability to be considered more fun because the way in which rewards are distributed, and if you ask me I say no.
GRT said on 1:37PM 5-13-2008
I don't think Iscrutibob was replying to you, easybake.
Note how his comment isn't indented. He was responding to the original post.
Inscrutibob said on 3:05PM 5-13-2008
Thank you GRT.
Easybake (great name), I was commenting on the article, but you seem to agree with the source article in MMO Gamer, which appears to make value judgments about what kinds of fun are worthy, and what kinds are second class. I grant you the perfect right to decide for yourself what you want to do. In no way does that make my fun lesser in any way.
Again, why does this point escape so many people? Rodney King quote, anyone?
Jester said on 1:24PM 5-13-2008
Easybake,
Your entire arguement was lost b/c of this statement:
"There are very exciting, and fun elements of mmos, but the majority of FPS game is exciting, "
"Exciting" is just as relative of a term as FUN... You can't judge what someone finds exciting versus what someone else finds exciting.
I can't state for a fact that 99.999999% of FPS's are not exciting for me in anyway. In fact I find them dull.
The excitement, the fun for me in an MMO comes from the adventure, the exploration of new worlds, and the ability to socialize while playing, and the general community of the game.
I have yet to find the same experience in an FPS.
As far as Taldren's comment "MMO gamers are people who generally don't enjoy playing their games."
He's quite the ass for assuming he knows what players enjoy.
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GRT said on 1:39PM 5-13-2008
I was going to post a comment, but Jester said everything I was going to say, only better.
I own FPS. Every day when I sit down to play a game I have a choice to make: which will bring me more pleasure today, a FPS or an MMO. And 9 times out of 10 I pick the MMO.
Not sure why Massively is giving this guy publicity, really. I guess Brenda needs to get her comment numbers up?
easybakeevan said on 4:21PM 5-13-2008
Yes, if you pick apart my argument some of it may be leaky.
I will not agree with you that my entire argument was lost from this notion. The heart of my argument concerns the rewards of these games. I find these rewards to be the heart of the fun of these games. When the rewards are intrinsic it is easy to mistake that as being superior to MMOs extrinsic treadmill system.
To say that my entire argument was lost is a bit of an overstatement. Anything else?
Jester said on 1:29PM 5-13-2008
I just looked further, when I first read the article I was thinking that this Taldren person was a developer for AoC, I see I was wrong in that upon further inspection.
Why the hell is this a news story? Some blogger spouts out about MMO players being lazy and its newsworthy?
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Resa said on 2:37PM 5-13-2008
I agree so much with the writer of the original article, that it has caused me to comment on a blog for the first time.
The idea of macroing combos seems to defeat the purpose of playing a game in the first place. How is automating a machine to play a game for you interesting?
Why not simply have the machine play the game for you? Now, some may say that this analogy goes too far, but the point here is that gamers do not fall into the neat categories of "wanting to work" and "lazy," but that there is a continuum of HOW MUCH we are willing to work. Within this continuum, I would argue that MMO players are much more on the side of "automation" for enjoyment. That's why we see people botting mmorpgs, but don't create machines to automatically frag opponents in an FPS.
One commenter above wrote that we should all just be accepting of how the other camp has fun. But as MMO players, we are uniquely dependent on the way in which others have fun in our game, because that dictates how much fun we are having. If a developers made a game easier to bot, there would naturally be uproar among the players.
Here, we see the same phenomenon. The original author thinks that the developers should not cater to the interests of those who want more automation in the game because he thinks, reasonably, that this will negatively impact the game for him. Moreover, I agree with the principle at hand. There seems to be something intrinsically wrong about automating anything, because it detracts from the experience and value of doing anything at all. Why watch a movie, when you can read the plot summary? Why eat a meal, when you could take a pill that makes you full? MMO's naturally attract people who are destination, not journey-based, and thus are more willing to automate the processes of the journey to get to the destination quicker. Whether you would describe this tendency as "lazy," or not, the tendency still exists.
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GRT said on 2:49PM 5-13-2008
Respectfully, I have to say: nonsense.
"That's why we see people botting mmorpgs, but don't create machines to automatically frag opponents in an FPS."
Botting is cheating. People cheat in MMOs, and they cheat in FPS. Punkbuster didn't get created just for the heck of it. Some people will absolutely use hacks to get the upper hand in FPS. Some people will absolutely use hacks to bot in an MMO. I see very little difference there.
"MMO's naturally attract people who are destination, not journey-based, and thus are more willing to automate the processes of the journey to get to the destination quicker. Whether you would describe this tendency as "lazy," or not, the tendency still exists."
You base this assertion on what? My personal experience is that there are just as many, if not more, "journey-based" MMO players as there are destination-based. People who are constantly creating alts and never hit level cap even though they play for years. People who hang out in towns chatting and goofing around.
Reading blogs & forums gives you a skewed view of the MMO audience; generally speaking you get only the driven, hardcore players who, yes, want to level as fast as possible. But just because they make more noise, it doesn't mean there are more of them. I mean, there aren't 10 million WOW players posted on message boards. The vast majority play the game and don't feel the need to talk about it outside the game.
DeathMutant said on 4:16PM 5-13-2008
MMOG's are supposed to be social games where, to experience all the game can offer, you need to plan, communicate and cooperate with other people. Planning, communcation and cooperation are higher order brain functions and much more advanced than the "twitch" reflexes required to be effective at FPS's.
I bet that you could train a Chimp to kick some n00b-butt in a FPS but I highly doubt that he could be nearly as effective in a PvE raid or a PvP siege.
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Angel said on 4:50PM 5-13-2008
it seems to me that the article and some of the posters here are making an equasion simaler to that of a high school fotball player saying that chess is not a "fun" game. it is a difference between enjoying types of "engagement"... a difference defined by subjective perception.
i used to love FPS but as my reaction times slowed i began enjoying RPGs more. MMORPGs are an extension from RPGs but with friends on a huge scale.
its just a different game, a game not all people would enjoy because not all people enjoy all things... thats it. so, you don't like MMORPGs. thats fine. just don't declare that because something is not what you like that it is not what is its... FUN and game like.
hell, i am actually tempted to bring in some of my scholarly work here that basically states, in some respects, MMORPGs are more of a game than a FPS. this is because of how the meaning of the word game indicates a remediation of particular aspects of life. it can be stated that the more of "real life" there is in a "game" the more "game like" it is. FPS posses less "life emulation" than a MMORPG which, in its way, inverts the argument from the article. thus a FPS is not as much of a game as a MMORPG is.
in the end it's perception. anyone can pull an argument out from their butt of any type they want. most things come down to opinion, preference and perspective. it's not that complicated...
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rinks said on 3:05PM 5-14-2008
Obvious troll is obvious.
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Sayvara said on 6:53AM 5-18-2008
As has been said: "Obvious-Troll is obvious".
This has happened before. One kind of gamer/practitioner/professional/whatever claims that his area of expertise is "better" and throws everyone else down in the mud. Yes, I said "his" because women usually suffer less of the "I Feel So Insecure About The Size Of My D*ck I Must Assert Myself By Bringing Others Down"-syndrome.
To quote Karl Lagerfeld: "It's all about taste. If you are cheap... well... nothing helps". Trying to make your "thing" better by flinging dirt at others' is cheap. It's a matter of preference, and nothing is better or worse than anyone elses.
Personally I started online gaming with FPS's twelve years ago. Put me in front of a Quake (1) CTF and I can probably still nab flags faster than you could find your own arse. I open up my UT 2004 about once a year, go in and win a game of Vehicle Capture The Flag or Onslaught, feel good about myself that I Still Got It and go back to the MMO's I play since 2006. I'm an objective oriented gamer. Gimme a goal that is something other than "Kill!" and I like to concider myself a plenty-better-than-average gamer. So it's not that I suck at FPS'ing... I just stopped playing them because I had more fun at MMO's.
To each his own. I don't look down upon FPS'ing in UT; MMO'ing in WoW; sim-lifeing in Second Life; Roleplaying in Age of Conan; cybersexing in full futa-style in Neverwinter Nights... (try to guess out which one of these I *havn't* been doing ;) ) as long as someone is not out committing crimes, we cannot kick their arse for playing what they enjoy playing.
Why are people even doing it? Why do some people get their knickers in a twirl just because other people don't share their entusiasm for... whatever.
I say insecurity. Maybe - as Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw so eloquently put it - "...there's a despicable little niggling doubt in the back of your mind that maybe you're not having as much fun as you'd convinced yourself you're having; which doesn't go away no matter how many times you try to slap it down with a wet flannel of weak excuses". Perhaps these irate bile-dispensers are wondering what hey are missing by not playing what others seem to be enjoying and go all Sour Grapes just to try to chase that nagging feeling away...
Slap me with Occam's Razor... what's the mistake in my reasoning?
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References:
Karl Lagerfeld for H&M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG854bnhXiw
Zero Punctuation: Mailbag Showdown
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/4878-Zero-Punctuation-Mailbag-Showdown
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