HELLO!
Now, you may also be aware that Guild wars had a big update recently, introducing many changes which basically gave me a plus one erection of time slaying. Now of course, whilst my own personal opinion is that the changes introduced are generally positive (I.E. entirely) it is the nature of such things that not everyone may agree. So when I saw a link to an article which purported to regard the update in a negative fashion I was intrigued. After all, it's always good to get a different angle on things, and I was interested to see how exactly it was that someone could regard the changes in such a way.
And that's as far as it would have gone if not for the authors rather baffling choice of terminology. He thinks one thing, I think another. That's fair enough, and I'm not going to start arguing on the internet. But it got me thinking about the notion of such changes and updates to games, and the inevitable backlash (however muted) that follows. Thus I am compelled to write down my thoughts so I can get back to running Sorrows Furnace in peace.
So what was it exactly that raised my ire?
This is Guild Wars no more
After discussing each point and why they feel it impacts negatively on the game, the author insists on repeating this statement. The obvious implication being that the game has been so irrevocably altered from it's previous state that it can no longer be regarded as a continuous experience. You know what I say to that?
Eh, close enough
Now, obviously the game is DIFFERENT in some way, otherwise there wouldn't BE any update. But to say they have essentially destroyed the core experience seems, to me at least, disingenuous at best. Now, there are 3 significant areas of this update, so I'll tackle them one by one, though not necessarily in the same order as my proclaimed nemesis.
Firstly, the titular Embark Beach. This is an area which links to and from all the mission zones in the game, and contains all the various town services you'd want for before and after a mission. The idea being that if you can't find people to team with wherever you are you can come to a central location. Sounds good right? Maybe there isn't anyone doing the bit you're stuck on right now, but will help you if you help them with something else. To be fair, the guy does go quite easy on this part, but to close your argument with the statement that the only thing the area does is make it easier to group, which is after all the explicitly stated function, seems a bit odd. Yes, you COULD look elsewhere, but now you don't HAVE to sit in town for 3 hours trying to find a group heading in your direction. The other argument he gives is that the area is immediately redundant due to....
The 7 Hero party update. Now, again for those of you who are not familiar with Guild Wars and thus stopped reading several paragraphs ago, a hero is a special type of customisable NPC you can fill out your party with. As you play the game you can unlock various characters of different professions and customise them
to your taste and ability, should you have the appropriate resources. Previously you were limited to only 3 heroes. Now you can fill out your entire party should you so desire, and play all on your own.
Needless to say, this is how I roll, and I have been waiting for this update for long time.
The argument here being that you can just fill out your party with powerful heroes and overpower everything in your path thus making the game too easy.
Spot the player character compitition!
Now, I have to admit that yes, having 7 heroes DOES seem to make things easier, possibly due to my insistence on breaking the game with pets. Does it make easier than running with a decent team of coordinated players? I doubt it. For those of us that prefer to play solo this is a godsend, opening up myriad new opportunities for play. For those that prefer to team this makes no fucking difference whatsoever. Now, maybe if I put in a huge amount of effort farming items and elite skills I could make an uber team of ultimate death, but that would require quite a bit of effort. Just as much, if not more, than would collectively go into building a full party of high end players.
So far from signalling the deathknell of the game this gives more options to those that enjoy solo play with many team building options to play with on top of all the character building, whilst taking nothing away from the social players (you only need 2 humans to fill out the rest of the party with 3 heroes each anyway).
Now onto the final section, and the one that really got me thinking. Titles. And you may note this is where most of the ire in the other article seems directed. It's also here that we're able to link what we're saying to the more general area of gaming. Pretty much EVERY game has some sort of title system these days, MMOs most particularly. And when the requirements for a title are changed for whatever reason there will always be someone who whines that now it's too easy and your not just cheapening the achievements of the older players you're actually spitting in their faces and sending their families off to death camps or whatever hyperbole seems fashionable at the time.
The problem here is that a few title "achievements" have gone from "Retarded" to "Possibly Doable With Sufficient Effort". The problem here (as in all similar cases) is that those that already have the titles will inevitably bemoan that the title is far too easy and thus no longer means anything.
Now, please remember that I myself play FAR TOO MUCH Guild Wars when I say this, but these titles normally only mean that YOU ARE WASTING YOUR LIFE.
Challenge, they always say. CHALLENGE?!!?
If you want a challenge, a difficult, time consuming task, go cross the sahara on a pogo stick.
And that is, suprisingly, a fairly good analogy for a lot of in game achievements. You are basically only doing it in order to say that you have. At the end of the day it achieves nothing in any real sense, outside of a PERSONAL sense of achievement. And that's fine. Nothing wrong with that. But just because you did something the hard way doesn't mean you should begrudge someone else doing it a different way. Maybe they're crossing the sahara on rollerskates. It doesn't change the fact that you did it on a pogo stick, but opening up the experience to others is not a bad thing.
Let's take a specific example here; the Legendary Defender Of Ascalon title. Now, Ascalon is the human kingdom where you start out in Guild Wars, and before it gets *SPOLIERS* blown up forms the starting area. Since it's a closed area you can't get back to some characters like to stay there. But since it's a starting area this limits your max level, as you will EVENTUALLY outlevel the available foes and stop earning experience. But it turns out some masochistic genius discovered a way around this that let you get up to the max level of 20. And that's what Legendary Defender is. You hit Level 20 in old Ascalon.
You wanna know how you had to do it? First find a foe, lure it to a resurection shrine. Then sit there and let it kill you over and over and over and over again for HOURS. Eventually the monster will level up high enough that you can kill it for XP. The do it again. And AGAIN. For MONTHS.
Whilst I respect the cunning that went into forming this strategy I have to say that this is the MOST RETARDED THING EVER.
Now they've put in a daily quest that scales to your level. So you can eventually gain the title by actually PLAYING THE GAME. And this is supposed to be a bad thing how? That was the issue with all the titles that they tweaked. None of them involved actually PLAYING the game. Well, except maybe Survivor, which involved playing the game in constant fear of having to restart your whole character from scratch. But now there are nice SANE ways of doing these things if your so inclined. And this is, I think, the key point. Because if an in game achievment looks like it might be actually doable then more people are going to be inclined to maybe have a go at it, and thus more people will be actually playing the game.
That is what games were for last time I checked.
P.S. After rereading that article again for purposes of moaning about it I have to say I'm not all that convinced the dude is 100% serious and not just trying to play devils advocate, as the arguments are rather weak. But who knows, different strokes and all that.
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