tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post6721833672043349473..comments2024-03-28T10:18:05.213+00:00Comments on Inventory Full: The Main IdeaBhagpusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499162165023939880noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-73522786065338452312022-03-13T13:19:00.849+00:002022-03-13T13:19:00.849+00:00I hear a lot about how hard (or even impossible) i...I hear a lot about how hard (or even impossible) it is to recapture or rediscover that sense of wonder many of has when we first started playing these kinds of games and there certainly is a lot of searching after lost youth or innocence going on there. None of us is going to get back to being twenty years younger just by playing a new video game, that's for sure.<br /><br />On the other hand, though, I think it's still eminently possible to experience the same rush, the same thrill that we had back then... it just needs the games themselves to have that indefinable magic. Valheim this time last year seemed to revitalize a whole load of somewhat jaded mmo vets, even though it wasn't actually an mmo. Genshin Impact did it to a lesser degree - and also isn't an mmo. Even New World looked like it might come close, until it fell apart.<br /><br />I think there's a thread here I might pull on. Wilhelm often talks about the way mmo devs overreach, trying to stuff every feature into every game, and I wonder if there's a generic problem with the form because of that. It's telling that the most impactful "mmo" experiences of recent times have either been in games that aren't actually mmos at all or in the early stages of real mmos that were then unable to convert the compulsive low-level experience into an endgame that would justify the "games as a service" model.<br /><br />Anyway, that's a tangent to be followed up another time - or not. I would guess that your experience mirrors that of a lot of long-time mmo players. It gets harder to sustain the same level of involvement across the board and we all end up cherrypicking the parts we feel comfortable with or enjoy the most. That said, I'm not entirely sure I ever did anything else!<br /><br />Bhagpusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03499162165023939880noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-87096940290451314042022-03-13T11:48:46.314+00:002022-03-13T11:48:46.314+00:00I've found that I'm playing fewer characte...I've found that I'm playing fewer characters as the years go along. I find I prefer to just play my favorites, the ones I have spent the most time with. The others who were either experiments / spec learning characters / alternate leveling options have mostly been deleted. I've kept the ones who were a part of a group, but the group has faded on the off chance the group might restart. (It's not like I'm pushing up on character limits after culling a group of seldom played alts.)<br /><br />Part of the reason I've cut back to just my long-term favorites is that my most-played MMOs have had long stretches where I just didn't enjoy how the story was going or where the game was headed. It is hard for me to get involved with leveling a new character when I see a large 'speedbump' of content I just don't like. Another part is simply real life issues taking away a portion of the energy and enthusiasm I had to play all parts of an MMO. Instead of wanting to continue to explore a game I am invested in, I'd rather do familiar things with comfortable characters.<br /><br />I'm also finding that I have a harder time investing in different MMOs. There are so many that I would like to just see the casual content, but pushing myself to get by the starter friction is hard. I keep dabbling because it is so much fun when you are excited and consumed by a new (or new to you) game. I don't know. Maybe I can't find that early sense of wonder any more, but I sure would like to. Pallaishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01052537793722183657noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-88349497407632381772022-03-13T08:57:03.218+00:002022-03-13T08:57:03.218+00:00Thanks for writing such great posts! The question ...Thanks for writing such great posts! The question of whether I always had Mains but just refused to admit it because it didn't fit my self-image is one that I've been forced to examine thanks to the new understanding I've gained. It's hard to be objective but I think a good test, going back to those highly social days, might be what character name friends and guildmates chose to use when they spoke to me. In EQ, for example, at one stage I was mostly known by the name of my Cleric and later, on a different server, by the name of my Beastlord. <br /><br />I had literally dozens of other characters, many in the same guilds and chat channels, but those were still the two people picked. Even now, I wouldn't call either of those my "Mains" but I could definitely rank all my characters in a heirarchy and those two would be in the highest rank. It's more, I think, that I had characters I took wholly seriously, characters I took fairly seriously and characters I didn't take seriously at all. That's probably still true. I just have a lot fewer in each category and often only one in the top category for a given game, which makes that one my de facto Main.Bhagpusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03499162165023939880noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-52924434043717542902022-03-13T08:46:40.415+00:002022-03-13T08:46:40.415+00:00That's an excellent point. I think the F2P rev...That's an excellent point. I think the F2P revolution itself, which as I've often said played directly into the specific way I, personally, already liked to play, in and of itself would have reduced the number of times I'd be likely to replay the same content in the same game with different characters. I've always enjoyed the low-mid levels the most, partly because they tend to be easier but also because that's when you spend more time learning than you do practicing what you've learned. Obviously, if you can keep starting new games, that part of the process can be sustained more consistently. Once F2P (and extended free trials) removed the cost of trying every new mmorpg, game-hopping became the most enjoyable option.<br /><br />I thought of a few other reasons why my playing preferences might have changed as well but the post was already long enough. I might come back to it some time to look at other aspects of how changes to genre expectations have subtly affected how we expect mmorpgs to work. Or I'll probably just keep playing new ones and write about that, because, once again, that's so much easier than actually analysing stuff!Bhagpusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03499162165023939880noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-65444840362845422842022-03-13T00:06:19.938+00:002022-03-13T00:06:19.938+00:00Thanks for the shout-out! I've always felt tha...Thanks for the shout-out! I've always felt that there was a strong distinction between my main and my alts, and I can understand people not wanting to bother with the latter, but the FFXIV approach of one character just being everything doesn't really appeal to me at all. There's an RP aspect to playing different characters for me... but I agree that a game has to make it worthwhile to explore these different options.Shintarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16758343475446510635noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-54365063300211647572022-03-13T00:02:34.731+00:002022-03-13T00:02:34.731+00:00Something that occurred to me while reading this -...Something that occurred to me while reading this -- the greater variety of games we have now may itself be the biggest barrier to alts. In the past, there were only a few MMOs, most of us only played one (or at least one at a time), and alts were how we got to have a change of pace. Now if you're feeling bored, it's a lot easier to just switch to a different game.<br /><br />Of course, I do already have two characters in New World, so maybe some of us are just incurable.Tyler Edwardshttps://superior-realities.com/noreply@blogger.com