Thoughts on progression

It's implicit in Blizzard's development and their statements regarding the topic that they see the progression of players and characters as a relatively straight line from leveling to Heroic raids. It's something like this: first you level to cap, then run normal dungeons, then run heroic dungeons, then LFR, then normal raids, then heroic raids. A few parallel activities are available but this is the basic form of the PvE game.

A major topic of contention nowadays is the LFR. Believing that it should be ripped out of the game altogether is unfortunately outside the realm of "respectable opinion" or what passes for such in the WoW forums. But what is the LFR? If anyone believed for a moment that it was meant to "teach players how to raid", they were thoroughly disabused of that notion over the weeks following the release of 4.3. The primary purpose of LFR is, clearly enough, allowing people to "see the content", so the development resources that went into making the raid aren't "wasted" on the minority¹.

The fact that the LFR is really just a glorified loot vending machine creates a gap in the road of progression. By Blizzard's own admission, normal dungeons are going to disappear and be replaced by easy heroics². After that, what is there to keep players improving themselves³ on the road to normal and heroic raiding? People end up with no incentive to play their class well, even more so than before. Of course, leveling could be made slower and less forgiving once more, but... heh, yeah, right. Like that's happening.

But I'm straying from the point. Suppose for a moment that there was a working progression path that took players from starting fresh all the way to heroic raiding, which is, as I see it, the way Blizzard want it to be. The choice of such a linear system probably stems from the theme park design of WoW.

Yet at the point in time when this model was conceived, there was no such thing as "casuals versus hardcores". True that WoW was possibly the beginning of it all, with its proposal of accessibility; but while mostly anyone could get into the game, there was no such silly thing as the notion that everyone was entitled to finishing BRD⁴ because of their hallowed $15 a month. The game was meant to draw players in and then challenge them, as per Blizzard's design philosophy of making a game accessible at the fringes but complex at the core, in order to provide lasting entertainment value.

Here we are, nearly 8 years later, and the simplistic fringe has expanded to the point where it's gobbled up most of the challenging core. The developers probably have not completely forgotten the importance of challenging players, else the game would be going downhill a lot faster than it is now. Yet they clearly place a much greater focus on extending accessibility. And it doesn't mix well with the linear progression path, as it flattens most of the difficulty curve and causes it to become exceedingly steep at the higher end.

This alienates those players who want to stay somewhere in the middle - say, someone who likes a 5-man that will test their limits but doesn't want to raid (me). It also makes players accustomed to trampling everything up to a certain point, which will result in burnout when they invariably find the first significant barrier, normal raiding. As such, it requires an increased rate of content output, but that is unlikely to be enough. Thus the model also ends up calling for the flattening of the difficulty curve further over time, which partially explains why Blizzard now assume that it's their job, not the players', to ensure progression: a lot of people have become incapable of accepting failure or even delay.

This can only end one way, if the rules of the game and players' perceptions continue on this road. And it's an ugly end, whittling away and eventually killing the significance of the "content first, accessibility later" philosophy (if it's not dead and buried already).

Some people in the forums seem to think that the next expansion pack will do away with a substantial part of the problem by implementing "sideways progression", represented by the pet battles and challenge modes. That is unlikely.

First and foremost, creating alternate meaningful development paths would imply in a major redesign of the game. The pet battles system, for example, would have to be as complex as Pokémon, or something of that magnitude, in order to have any staying power.

Second, even if there was meaningful, time-consuming progression down each and every path, they would be liable to fall to the same issue we see today in the tired old "beat bosses, get gear" model: players feeling entitled to advance but no longer able to, requiring Blizzard to change the rules in their favor.

As an aside, the pet store would inevitably bring cries of "foul!" if pet battles ever did matter. That is, if Blizzard isn't banking on boosting their pet store sales that way in the first place.

Third: besides the a priori reasons above, there isn't much reason to believe, from the information we've been given, that these new features will be anywhere near as important as traditional character progression.

I would like to believe that Blizzard are really trying to give the (apparently large) portion of the player base who feel entitled to progression, but are not really ready to work for it, something to divert their attention from PvE and allow the developers to put it back on track. But after their statement that MoP "heroics" will be more Wrath-like, and the disappointing challenge modes⁵, it's hard to be optimistic.

If the devs really want to diversify the game, I believe they would be better off adding branches to the traditional development path. I'd like nothing better than a couple of BRS or BRD type dungeons, with attunements and keys, tricky and hard-hitting trash, lots of quests from all over the world, simple but tightly-tuned bosses...

Sorry, daydreaming. Anyway, in a nutshell: Blizzard has their "on-rails" character development path, and it currently depends on fast content output + steady nerfs, a probably self-defeating formula largely because of evolving player expectations. The primacy of gear-based character progression is very unlikely to change, and if it changes while continuing with the current difficulty curve paradigm, it will add to the problem.

Perhaps I've got everything out of proportion, or perhaps Blizzard sees the problem and plans to tackle it slowly, so as not to upset the entitled masses. But when I try to be optimistic, things like that dreadful quote from Bashiok hang ominously above like a storm cloud.

¹ There may be other reasons, too. It may be that the Blizzard fear competitors' accessible content (many of them being fresher and/or F2P), and so feel pressured to make their crown jewel, raiding, available for anyone in order to retain an edge in the subscription MMO market. Or maybe they actually believe in "democratic raiding" for its own sake... here's hoping that's not the case.

²Which strongly suggests that the only thing heroic about them will be the name. And the fact that it gives valor points.

³Notice that I'm talking about players improving their skills, not characters improving their gear.

⁴A mere dungeon! Today Blizzard is scared of requiring from players even so little as the trouble of forming their own groups, and God forbid they should fail to complete the instance in less than an hour.

⁵I plan to make a post specifically about that.

"Grindy is not difficult": the lazy player's excuse

A line that's repeated practically every time someone brings up the fact that WoW was "harder" in Vanilla and Burning Crusade is this: "Vanilla and BC weren't hard, they were just huge grindfests." It seems that many people like to draw a line between skill and dedication.

Two points to be made. The first is that the distinction is artificial. There are many dimensions to "difficulty", and a task that requires more time than another is obviously more "difficult" in that respect. Many forum posters seem to think that it is not a legitimate type of difficulty, however. They often deride the people who are willing and able to spend a lot of time in the game as "virgins living in their moms' basements".

That is an obvious and worthless ad hominem that oozes envy with every syllable. Not unlike what you would expect from school children trying to establish themselves as "the cool ones" in an attempt to offset a perceived inferiority somewhere else. Or people who believe they are better than others, and find ways to diminish the merit of those who have climbed to greater heights.

It's very simple: the more effort you invest into something, the better you'll get at it, other things remaining equal. You spend a lot of time at parties? Have lots of friends? Never stay at home in the weekends? Good for you. Your social and sex lives must be a bajillion times more interesting than mine. But when you log into WoW, don't expect your success with "the chicks" to translate into being superior to a nerd who plays 6 hours a day. Just like he shouldn't expect women to be attracted to him for playing WoW and living in his mom's basement.

But of course many in either field (and others) don't accept that. They believe there is one right way to live (their own way) and those who follow it must be rewarded with every amenity available to man. It's curious, really; it would make more sense from a practical standpoint to acknowledge one's limitations and focus instead on one's strengths. I suppose it doesn't work like that because humans are social creatures, always struggling to appear smarter and righter than the next fellow in every possible way.

Anyhow, back to the point. If you can't commit several hours a day to the game, which would be necessary to achieve something, then that is a barrier, and therefore difficult. Difficulties are named that way because they can't be overcome without sacrificing something - in this case, one's time. If you were unable or unwilling to pay the price, then you failed to beat this difficulty. Instead of swallowing it and learning to live with one's inferiority (or trying to get better), a member of the entitled generation will be quick to come up with a story that explains:

1) why his failure was the result of "bad luck" or the world conspiring against him, and not his own lack of competence;

2) why those who managed to become better than him didn't really deserve it;

3) why his preferred style of play deserves to be propped up by Blizzard.

And this brings us to the second point, which is that these complaints are not arguments, but excuses. The wrongness of long grinds is just one that's been repeated so often and for so long that it became accepted as truth. But there are plenty of others.

For example: one day, the "gimmicky" mechanic that needs to be abolished is the necessity of grinding reps, consumables and resist gear (excuse: "I have a life"). The next, it's challenging trash (excuse: "I play for the bosses, not the trash"). Then boss mechanics (excuse: "it's not fun to be one shot"). Which leads to mana management (excuse: "we need to heal bad players"). And downhill from there.

Bottom line: that old adage is very true. Those who want to get something done find a way to do it; those who don't find an excuse.

This isn't really an argument against nerfing things, although since excuses naturally tend to flow from the laziest amongst us, it usually works that way. Still, it's perfectly reasonable to think that a particular difficulty is overtuned, because they can very well be, by a variety of subjective standards. The problem is players who believe that anything they don't like or can't do must be wrong in a cosmic sense, and anyone who thinks differently must be evil or pathetic or in some way worthless.

I like to think that nobody really listens to these people who can't keep their overgrown egos in check, but you never know. In many ways Blizzard does seem to expect the worst from a large portion of its player base.

Accessibility is as accessibility does

Listening to Vanilla WoW music and complaining that the sense of adventure is gone from the game sounds suspiciously like a typical, acute case of nostalgia. But (there is always a but) there are enough reasons to believe it isn't just that. Much of the "world" has been taken from the World of Warcraft, owing to flying mounts, dungeon finders, streamlined questing and other such conveniences.

Why did the basics, particularly leveling content, become so fast and easy? Why did Blizzard implement a supertanker-load of "quality of life improvements", when they surely know better than anyone that putting time-consuming and random obstacles in the way of players is the meat and potatoes of any game, especially a MMO?

The most obvious factor is veteran players' complaints that they have been through it and it's ridiculous to have to do it all over again. It's inevitable that once a person understands something, they see the little annoying details as gimmicky and unnecessary impediments ("familiarity breeds contempt").

In the real world there isn't much that can be done. You may no longer be a child awed at the world or an idealist striving towards something; you may think that everything sucks and just want to lie down and sleep all day... but you still have to get up in order to sustain your continued existence. It's not up for discussion.

In WoW, on the other hand, you can go to the forums and argue that it's your God-given right to lie in bed all day, because you're already doing a lot by existing. This argument comes in many different shapes, flavors and magnitudes. You may ask for something as simple as a 10% reduction in the health of a quest mob who's giving you a tough time. Or you may demand free maximum-level gear "because you pay for the game just like everyone else".

Nerfing is a slippery slope, the worst sort of slippery slope: the one where you keep going willingly, because you've bought into the premise. Poison mixing isn't challenging, just a repetitive mandatory meta-game. Attunements are not real checks of a player's skill and dedication, only barriers that unevenly affect new players and casuals. Resistance gear is just a poorly conceived time sink, do away with it. Why is this quest in the middle of nowhere, it's such an unnecessary trek.

This idea that the game can be "improved" by making it more convenient is really just a disguise for a classical human ploy to improve their lot: if playing by the rules seems like too much work, attempt to co-opt the people in charge and make them change the rules to favor you. This goes on until the rules are so out of touch with reality that things begin to give.

This doesn't mean that everyone who wants the game to be easier or less time-consuming is a rent-seeker, or to put it another way, a lazy bastard who just wants free epics. On the contrary, a lot of the people who think so, especially the ones at Blizzard, are really sincere. They believe that making things more accessible will make more people able to get stuff faster, and thus be happier.

Such a view simply assumes that loot is good, and anything that stands in the way of loot is bad. It supposes that players are simpletons, who get home after their daily toil and want to bash some things, earn some shinies and talk smack with their buddies without straining their minds too much. The concept of a dedicated player who faces the game as a challenge to be beaten and a puzzle to be solved becomes ridiculed, as if this were only a tiny minority in a sea of "give me stuff" baboons.

Notice the drastic change in perspective, which was nevertheless accomplished quite subtly. From the idea that it is unnecessary to demand too much from players who have already gone through a lot, the discussion has shifted to a fear of demanding too much from players who are too lazy to help themselves.

This isn't a leap, it's the inevitable result of the "let's just make this more accessible" mindset. It's not unlike charity. It may sound and look pretty, but it has a rather ugly tendency to make its beneficiaries come back for more... and more... and more. They begin to feel like it's the donor's duty to give them stuff. And when he realizes that it's getting ridiculous, and puts his foot down and says "no more", he gets to find out just how nasty those "poor, helpless people" can be.

That is not an attack on poor people or comfort-seeking players in particular. Anyone can acquire comfortable, bad habits and become loath to abandon them. But combine this unpleasant human characteristic with the benevolent desire to alleviate suffering, and you have a peculiarly ugly way of having well-intentioned initiatives go sour. So it is with adding conveniences to a game.

Blizzard's music

I've long been of the opinion that Blizzard's in-house composers are one of the company's most important aces up the sleeve. Of course, the company has always been known to be exceptional at "polishing", including such things as textures, models, animations, responsiveness, and balanced combat. Music could arguably be called an "extra layer of polish", although it seems unfair to say this in Blizzard's case.

Why? Because the company in the whole is (or has acquired a reputation for being) exceptional at making solid, polished games, although they fall a bit short in the "originality" criterion. While that may sound uncharitable, it really isn't meant that way. Originality is overrated - brilliant ideas are a dime a dozen, but making them work is exceedingly tricky.

But back to Blizzard's music. Even if you are a sucker for uniqueness, their composers can hold their own. Granted, that comes from a complete noob in musical matters, but bear with me. There is no sense of staleness to their compositions, not in the sense of "I've heard this one before, somewhere." And even though they obviously know how to stick to what works, they also have some rather experimental tracks, much of which fits amazingly well with the environment they are meant to represent (Karazhan comes to mind).

So while Blizzard can be called a very solid company in most respects (notable exceptions being storytelling and their recent "STUFF FOR EVERYONE!" attitude), their music really shines through as exceptional. And I contend that there is reason to believe that this outstanding music has had much more of an impact in the company's success than one might think.

The prime example is the original World of Warcraft's title screen track. It really is difficult to gather enough praise. The tune takes you by the hand and asks you to follow it into this world of adventure and promise, in a voice that is as pure and musical as that of an elf-maiden in the Silmarillion. It gives listeners a soaring sensation and makes them feel like nothing could be more right than following the voice's advice - like falling hopelessly in love.

That may sound excessive, and of course there is a good dose of nostalgia involved, but it gives a pretty good idea of how well the track fits the opening screen of a large world to explore and brave. The composers expertly use music to augment the emotions that the game transmits to its players. Sometimes they manage to take a flimsy game element and turn it into something memorable, be it a place, a character, a plot or another.

I won't say that locations in Blizzard's games are not awe-inspiring - the zone/level/terrain design team are also very good at what they do (it's a shame it means so little with the current dungeon design and flying mounts in the open world). But the game is sorely lacking in compelling characters and story arcs. If Blizzard's ability to take tried-and-true formulas, beef them up and make them look great has failed somewhere, it's in storytelling. Their games tend to be not only unoriginal but stale in that respect.

And while some may dismiss a game's story as merely a prop for the actual mechanics, the opposite is true. Humans search for meaning and continuity in everything they do, and while it may be sufficient for some to simply "win", I feel pretty safe in saying that very few people, if any at all, are completely oblivious to the development of plots in the video games they play.

In that context, the music of Blizzard takes on an even more important role in their games. It helps keep players connected to the story and the world around them, and lends some sorely needed substance and credibility to those things in the process. Of course, that music has a crucial support role in movies, video games and other multimedia is nothing new. But I feel that Blizzard's composers bear on their shoulders a greater portion of the larger work of which they are part than the average musician. They are certainly largely responsible for making a good deal of storytelling that would otherwise be quite forgettable sound deep and moving.

As a disclaimer, allow me to add that I still think that challenging gameplay is the largest factor that lends "meaning" to a game and its story. But as far as their slice of the responsibility for making games memorable goes, I /bow to Blizzard's composers.

The 99% versus the 1% - the MMO version

Reading through the WoW forums, a trend recently came to my attention. It is the tendency to talk of content as if it was specifically designed for a segment of the player base. This idea permeates Blizzard's stance since the end of Burning Crusade, which is that they shouldn't waste time and money developing things that only a tiny fraction of the population are likely to see. In other words, the 99% are responsible for 99% of our revenue, so why should we spend half of what we pour into the game trying to please the tiny minority?

It's a mistake - theoretically, practically, and morally - to try to artificially segregate "classes" in a society. Human interactions are way too complex to predefine in such a way. Every member of a community affects everyone else, directly or indirectly, subtly or not, in ways that are impossible to fully comprehend. And every "policy" that aims to affect only a specific segment of society is doomed to cause unintended consequences.

It might seem noble (and smart, from a business or political perspective) to cater to the "starving millions". And it's easy to dismiss the cries of the sacrificed 1% as "QQ from wannabe snowflakes". After all, electronic loot can be multiplied at the flick of a switch like manna, so why be stingy?

In the real world, of course, there is no such thing as free stuff. Nature is stingy and whatever we get from her must be taken by force. This continuous fight to stay ahead of entropy is what drives humans. And (allow me to get philosophical here a moment) if it wasn't for this cruel reality of mortality, there wouldn't be such things as great works that are remembered through the ages. There is no good without evil, no joy without suffering, no light without dark, no story without an end.

That is why failing in a video game, especially a MMO, is necessary. And it's why there will always be a 99% and a 1%. It's also the reason for which the things designed for the top 1% are pivotal to all 100% of the community: they represent the pinnacle, the unreachable ideal, the deliverance from the hardships that plague every struggling noob. Just like living the high life and not having to worry about money is the dream that keeps even the lowliest worker battling to accumulate wealth - even if his immediate concern is earning enough for his next meal.

The problem is, Blizzard have seen it fit to bring everyone to within an inch of that heavenly ideal. A winning lottery ticket for everyone! To the point where a lot of people may say: "what, I have to work that much to gain this little? Bah." And then they get bored. And then you get "more content than ever... but not enough content."

Players learning to play better, my arse. The devs have brought this on themselves.