A couple of weeks ago, a newer member of my era guild asked on Discord what it was that kept people playing Classic era. Surely everyone had "done it all" multiple times over by this point. I found people's responses very interesting to read.
The question of why one should invest in an MMO that isn't going to receive any more content updates is one I've seen brought up many times before - heck, people were raising it in the run-up to Classic, before it was confirmed that there was going to be progression into Burning Crusade.
Honestly, I've always found that concern a bit weird. I get that new content is exciting, and that a big update always generates a lot of interest, but surely you don't specifically play to experience some unknown future updates? I thought we played because we were enjoying the here and now? People revisit old games, films and books all the time, and you wouldn't consider that strange just because there isn't a sequel in the works, would you?
Often there seems to be a worry of getting invested in a game in which you might eventually run out of things to do, but this is coming from the same people who rarely spend more than a month at a time in any new MMO anyway. If you're having fun now, why does it matter? Running out of things to do is a problem for much, much later, not to mention that most people get bored before they've done everything anyway.
In addition, I think many people who ask these kinds of questions overestimate how much time everyone else spends playing. Let's assume it takes about ten days /played to level a character to 60 in OG Classic. (Yes, I know it can be done faster, but let's assume a more casual approach that isn't super-optimised and includes some idling as well as spending time on non-levelling activities such as professions.) Even if you play forty hours a week, levelling a single character to 60 will take you six weeks. If you play twenty hours a week, it'll be three months. If you take things super casually and only play four hours each weekend, it will take you over a year just to level a single character from one to 60, and at that point you haven't even touched endgame or created a single alt. Suddenly it shouldn't sound so strange that there are plenty of people who weren't "done" with Classic by the time it progressed into Burning Crusade, considering that it lasted for less than two years in total. Era provides a home for those who couldn't keep up with that pace but still wanted to keep playing.
And there are things that era offers that you can't get in any other version of WoW. I personally didn't mind the themes of Burning Crusade, but if you liked Warcraft in its original, mostly traditional fantasy state (without space goats etc.), it doesn't get any closer to that than Classic era. It's also "sandboxy" enough that people are pretty good at coming up with their own challenges and making their own content. There's a server community on era that's closer to the way community worked in Vanilla than you'll find anywhere in current Classic. And I know many people hated 40-man raids, but some weirdos (like me) really liked the bigger raid sizes and you can't get those in any other version of WoW either.
I have to say that even without further updates, I'm really not worried about running out of things to do in Classic era. I have limited hours to play and don't spend them solely on WoW, so just looking at my current stable of characters I feel like just levelling and gearing them all is something that could keep me busy for many years to come. And if I do eventually get bored of it... so what? If Blizzard stick to their plan of maintaining era indefinitely, I can just take a break and come back to it later whenever the nostalgia cravings hit me. Unlike in a progressive MMO, taking a break won't mean that on returning you discover that suddenly, everything is different and you're massively behind. For some of us, that's a feature, not a bug.
And yes, I did it again.
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For me, I've come to enjoy having a few MMOs where things aren't changing. They have become games I can savor at my schedule without worrying about how much or how little I'm playing them. Sure, I may miss out on certain events, but I've made my peace with the idea of not always 'being there'.
ReplyDeleteNow, some games I wish I did see more content, at least now and then, but I'd rather have a game stay up and running in maintenance mode than have it go away complete because of 'no new content'.
I mean... same, hehe.
DeleteI think that the desire for new content includes a fear that the game will whither and die. Enough fondly remembered games are gone now because their company decided to shut them down as too costly to maintain. So I can see folks wanting to know future content is coming to assure their desire that the game they enjoy now will still be there tomorrow.
DeleteSo playing a static MMO can be a bit of an anxiety producer if the company who runs the game isn't known for keeping their old games up. Until a person has experienced a long term static MMO I can see them buying into the whole 'no new content -> dead game -> no players -> shut down servers' conceit. It can be like that, but there are enough counter examples, including Wow Classic itself that people should at least try a static game or have it as one of their alternative MMOs.
If they create Cataclysm Classic, I suspect those that simply stop playing "Classic Progression" will go back to Era.
ReplyDeleteOr those folks will live on the forums complaining Cataclysm Classic shouldn't have Dungeon Finder or LFR. ;)
DeleteThough Cataclysm without either of those two features would be an interesting experiment to watch. Not that I would want to play that version, but it would be interesting to see how successful it was for the Classic Progression group.
For me, the change to the Old World was a deal breaker, so no amount of massaging will change that. I do wonder whether they'll have perma-Wrath servers, just like Classic Era, however.
DeleteI wouldn't think that people who had three expansions of hyping themselves into more and more min-maxing would enjoy going back to chill, slow era, where nobody's in a hurry and there are no races to be won.
DeleteCata Classic or whatever else could or should come after Wrath is a whole other kettle of fish.
Our community really reflects the idea of playing casually enough to spend months/years levelling a character, it must be why we like era so much - nothing is going anywhere. I need a miner to get arcane crystals, but who cares whether that happens in a month or in six? I don't need to 'keep up' with any one or any thing. I find those who like to play a bit more hardcore don't stick around too long. We all have lives to live. We're snails, but we're happy snails :)
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that for as much as I appreciate it, it took me a little while to adjust to that. When you first start on era, it can be easy to look at all these highly geared characters and feel like you're terribly behind and must "catch up". It's only after a little while that you realise how slowly everything moves, and that many people do raids where they don't even need anything, just because they enjoy hanging out, and that there's no rush.
DeleteThere are still some social incentives, e.g. if you're not attuned to certain raids you just can't come along, and if you're not around much, people won't necessarily remember who you are,. but it's a far cry from the dog-eat-dog vibes I got in BC sometimes.
I like the idea of us being happy snails! Though I'm actually kind of surprised by how much some people play that have clearly been around for a while. I'll log in briefly during the day time and some characters just seem to be on all the time. Maybe they just like to pick flowers during Zoom calls or something; era certainly lends itself to that. However it still surprises me that they've managed to keep busy for so long.
I was very surprised to learn that so many of the Naxx-geared people didn't earn it in WoS! A handful have only looted one or two pieces in the past year but still come to most raid nights. Must be more about community/chill vibes for them, loot isn't the motivator for everyone.
DeleteI also found that people take breaks and eventually come back around, with older members getting really excited about seeing their names pop online again haha. It's nice to think that there's always a little community who will remember and welcome you back if/when you get tired of picking flowers on zoom calls.
It is the reverse for me. I'm enjoying WotLK at the moment but I always have the nagging feeling "why play an MMO that is going to change for the worse?". WotLK is the point where every class feels great, to me. (Although they are all to powerfull for my liking).
ReplyDeleteI've seen Cataclysm once. It's impossible to fix that. The fucked up world is a deal breaker for me. All classes play like shit. But the writing is on the wall that they will progress to Cataclysm one way or another. This severely reduces my investment this time around.
Why level up fishing or farm some mount or reputation? It's only temporary anyway.
There's a chance that they'll make Wrath era servers like they did for Classic. At least there currently seems to be more interest in that than there was for BC. However, there are no guarantees, and I know that would put me off too.
DeleteBrilliant post. Sums up a whole attitude to playing mmorpgs that I've struggled to explain in the past. It's partly that old "living there" thing people used to go on about when we called these games "virtual worlds" but it's also about still seeing them as games, just more the kind of games you play as a child, where there's no beginning or end and the rules can be changed whenever you feel like it.
ReplyDeleteOn the whole progression vs static era thing, I think everyone needs to remember that Blizzard headhunted Holly Longdale quite specifically to run this side of the operation. The way she ran progression servers - very successfully - in EQ was to set the whole thing up as a cyclical process with no endpoint. EQ, of course, has a lot more expansions to run through than WoW, but the basic principle of progression servers, once DBG got it nailed down, is to keep popping them up, often with varying rulesets just to keep things spicy, then let them run through the expansions until they bleed population to the point they're no longer viable. Most progression servers never get even close to opening all the expansions before they merge into other servers and most players jump ship to start over on newer prog servers so they can run through the earlier expansions yet again.
I would guess the long-term plan for WoW is going to be much the same. Everything happens at a glacial pace in WoW compared to pretty much any other mmorpg, so we're probably looking at a much longer cycle, but at some point we'll get Classic 2.0 and round we all go again. It's really not unrealistic to imagin the whole thing carrying on for another fifty or a hundred years. There's actually no reason to stop unless interest dries up, which it very probably won't.
I can't say I really get that endless repeat model of progressive servers. I understand the appeal of starting fresh every now and then, but over and over? It kind of goes against the whole "persistent world" aspect of MMOs, which is something I value a lot.
DeleteI wonder whether this model will work as well for WoW as it did for Everquest. Season of Mastery didn't look like it was a huge success, at least not from the outside.