Gambling your life away online - an article about what a Chinese MMO is like

I liked how DAOC did it with deteriorating armors and weapons over time. This kept the player crafting market always active as everyone would have to replace their gear eventually. Of course I think the whine and the cry became loud enough that some of the more elite dropped items didn't deteriorate and of course this eventually ruined the player crafting market.

SWG's when it first came out used the same principle with weapons and thus after so much use you had to buy another one. But, the whines and cries and then the total overhaul of the whole game ruined it totally and over 1/2 the population left.

I feel nothing should last forever, it doesn't in the real world and shouldn't in the game world. Weapons and armor should become old and used and need to be replaced eventually. But, GW has no real player crafters like DAOC or SWG anybody can craft the same exact items in GW without any experience. They should have made crafting something you gained experience in so those that enjoy player crafting could have made a business out of it and profits.

True, and this illustrate how far from the "traditionnal" communism China actually is. It's strange to think of this happenning, though not so much when you think it's digital and the article kind of state the "socialist" point (a different topic I guess).

I remember reading this article 6 months ago and it reinforced the impression that I had that MMO can turn very bad in China, where monopoly is not a problem. I also read a few other articles on this article saying the reported was biaised. But may be it was propaganda.

What "frightened" me is how brutal their MMO was and how difficult the game could be if you're an "average" player. A spirit very much in contradiction with GW. And I think it's wrong when money and pleasure mix so intricately.

I honestly don't think a game like that could work in America. I mean, I know kids use their parents to help pay for subscriptions to other games, but constantly recurring payments might kill the playerbase.

Great article! If this isn't the best argument against real money for gear, i don't know it anymore.

Reading it actually made me feel uncomfortable. We all know how easy it is to be sucked up by a game like that. ANET seems almost altruistic compared to it.

Not an American based game but plenty of Americans playing it.
http://www.entropiauniverse.com/index.var

That is a free to play free to DL game but oooooo beware of the money sucking void that it is, I "donated" 20.00 and it was gone in less than 6 hours. GW forever.

They're like a swarm of gnats. When questing in WoW, their would be a rogue (Chinese farmer) at ever step, three at every node, two following behind you trying to skin your kill before you could blink. Not gnats, more like a school of blue fish, bouncing off of everything, consuming anything they could get their mouth around. Go to China, you rarely see a bird in a tree, nor beast or rodent about. Piranhas, that's it they're like a frenzied school of piranhas. . .

Persistent Worlds are really not very fun after having been spoil by GW. I just can't help but feel like I'm in an medieval theme park, and everyone is running to the next ride with sword and staff wearing their fruity costumes. Though in AoC beta, half the 12 year old boys are playing a buxom nude female. . . oh yeah~

But seriously. China is on the cusp of becoming a first world free-market power. They're spending their yen as a means of virtual empowerment. I've seen people waist their money, lots of it, on worse things. Unfortunately evercrack is not something that's easy to cure.

Interesting article. Goes to show why paying for stuff in a game should be banned. Earn things through play, not shedding out cash. Maybe unlocking all skills for the purposes of PvP, as has been done in the past, is ok - but not giving out equipment that no one else can get and is way above what they can normally access.

After reading that article, it does not surprise me.. Asian based games are based on levels + equipment and micro payments, although 1000rmb is not a micro payment. It gets competitive in everything because its the classic kill or be killed scenario. Besides that, the whole asian honor thing is on the line in these games. I just hate the way that they say its F2P while the game forces the p2p concept. I hope Guild Wars 2 does not become like this, gaming addictions are kinda hard to get rid of until you completely own the whole thing and no one can beat you, which almost will never happen because theres always someone better.

I remember seeing a thread about ANet selling gold for real money, while not being the best counter to that proposition, a crying example of the consequences of mixing real world resources and gaming.

Thank you Chinese for games of those kind, we need them to see what is to be avoided.

If I start playing a game and find out in order to actually do anything past the point of starting that I have to spend real money for upgrades or special things, then I know I'm not playing a game. I'm just wasting my time ...

There is no such thing as playing a game anymore to some people. That saddens me...

But hell, if people want to do it, I'm not going to force them to not do so. If you got money to spend to make pixels look GO RED ENGINE cool, by all means, go ahead.

Sure as hell wont get me to become that vain...

Nice discussion, good points all around. Obviously this is an extreme case, and it is completely blatant (at least, from the outside) as opposed to the more subtle moneymakers like, I dunno, griffon travel in WoW forcing you to pay to waste your time watching the same movie over and over again. I think in North America, micropayments that prevalent are still unacceptable (although come to think of it I spent $10 on a char slot).

It's a good point that many hobbies are expensive, especially when you try to distinguish yourself from your peers. For me, what is fulfilling is becoming more skilled over time. I like GW because I always feel like there's someone better than me. As soon as I feel like the only distinguishing factor is time spent or gear acquired through grind, I'm out.

I hope GW2 strikes a good balance between what we need and what ANet needs to make money and pay those awesome artists.

PS. That exploding gems thing is just...insane. I'm not an angry person but I would ragequit in real life if that ever happened to me.

Last time I checked you need to buy Guild Wars, making it a P2P game.

As for Asian MMORPGs, you can recreate the grand canyon faster with a tea spoon than actually finishing the game, the amount of grind in Asian MMOs makes you desperate to buy all the fancy ingame items they offer so you might see some daylight after finishing the game. SO NOT FUN AT ALL.

Imo is a shame, should all mmos end up like this, because to create games that are totally based on grind and lets players to buy stuff ect, just to get rid of the braindead grind is a sign for the game's devs to be too stupid to create a good game with good thought out gameplay systems, that are balanced, so that players don't have to grind for eternities, to receive the best equipment.

Its no game anymore, when you have to pay for every shit real money, just so you have not to grind otherwise for like a half year+ to get somethign done in the game due to insane stupid thought out gameplay systems full of grind concepts, which have no other purpose, other then driving players into online addiction.


It would be alot better, when more companies would follow the good lead example of ANet and would bring out in future more good high qualitative MMO's with NO mothly fees, where the players have just to pay for the core game and the bigger add ons and the rest of money gets made via an online Store, where players can buy Merchandise and ingame features, that bring players no direct unfair advantages over others, like buying more chara slots ect. liek we see it in our Store yet.

This should be the future for the MMO market and not the wrong direction of making the market again only more back to a scene, where you have to pay monthy for any game fees, or where only the rich players are strongest, that are willing to spent big amounts of real money, just so that they get in the game their ultimative charas >.>

Guild Wars is pay-to-buy, but free to play. Pay-to-play means that as long as you are playing a game, you will be continuously bleeding out cash. I'm willing to dish out piles of money for good games, but the subscription games tend to artificially drag out playtime to milk customers. This completely ruins them for me, even the hugely popular ones - WoW, Eve, Everquest, etc. I could never get into paying money out the nose while waiting patiently for something fun to happen.

For all the flak Anet catches on these forums for not giving out more free stuff, not fixing bugs, bad balancing decisions, etc., they are leaps and bounds beyond most other developers on customer relations. Consider all the free updates, skill balancing, festivals and such that are still showing up consistently after 3 years. Name one other free game with this level of support. Very few other companies even come close to this - Valve and Blizzard excluding WoW come to mind. ArenaNet is simply amazing when you consider that the customer relations from scum-sucking companies like EA are the norm in the industry.


Also, relevant pic for the tl;dr crowd:

Oh man! That comic shows exactly why my initial exitement about Hellgate London vaporized faster then an icecube in the core of the Canis majoris star.

Darwin = not fun. Not even for the top of the foodchain players because they constantly need to grind just to stay on top.

As long if ANet doesn't make Guild Wars Pay2Play, then everything should be A.O.K.!

Right...

In some case cash shops in those free to play games are worst than the monthly fee. I heard about people spending 50-100$ in GE (Sword of the new world in the US/EU) all the time, granted most of the cash items can be trade with ingame money. But still, spending that much is just really stupid, aint it?

Ah well whatever turn they on, I guess. *Off to play GTA4

Coveted rewards for the mosts chests opened and exploding stars based on chance?
Jesus how are people getting caught up in this? It's so ridiculously blatant.

I only know most Taiwan players like MMO can make money, can buy weapon by real money,can kill monster and player in game.

So guildwar in Taiwan,hk sell less 1000 (rare Taiwan,hk player play GW becaues it can't make money to change real money).

Taiwan (one country on earth) player signed/

I'm not sure how people can consider it 'wasting' money to spend RL cash on in-game things.

In pretty much every situation, the speed at which a person earns money IRL is relatively higher to their farming ability. Why farm for 100 hours and make however much gold when you can work for 100 hours, actually maybe develop in real life, and make enough money to buy that amount of gold and have plenty left over?

If anything, farming ingame is wasting time and buying with real cash is more efficient. It's largely a knee-jerk reaction to the concept that keeps people on the 'omg money waste' bandwagon.

I'd prefer a game where grinding currency for items isn't necessary whatsoever (Guild Wars gets close but the unlock grind is still immense), but when it comes down to it, most rpgs are going to have that because they don't have the depth of gameplay to add replay value beyond artificially lengthening the game through grind goals.

The game in the article isn't so much different to games where time spent grinding determines the winner. RPGs by nature tend not to be designed with skill as a deciding factor - how many people are willing to focus on developing skill compared to a clearly defined numerical stat? Players with a flat advantage over others due to equipment or whatnot are pretty much a given in every game - Guild Wars is an exception due to the exceptionally low caps on equipment and levels which helps remove the benefit of grinding. Acting as if the game in the article is something significant or astonishing is rather naive considering the nature of almost every game online.