This game lacks epeen

Or they will complain that the best "looking" and "stat" gear should only belong to those that can complete a 16 man raid on Uberhard-SuperNightmare-KittenSledgehammer difficulty, and they have to do the Operation backwards.

Uruare is pretty smart, its basically for the same reason there is a crap ton of different clothing manufacturers... why do you think most compete in the same market space?

- I do agree that there should be more difficult content that a group of four friends can complete, more and more people are having less and less free time.

I'm trying to make up for all the one-sentence posts, you see. There's a sekrit quota of verbiage forums require, and if I don't paint the wall with words, something horrible will burst forth and...I dunno...be horrible. A lot.




Anyhoo, silliness aside, it's not a poor question you essentially pose there, but the joy of the matter is, focusing on vanity ego motivators wouldn't absolutely preclude a few utilitarian motivators also being tossed in there either.

Wouldn't be anything wrong with PVP and raiding and crafting all alike to, at their top ends, provide some unique-to-their-pursuit ungodly awesome armor and weaponry along with a lot of improved-vanity-function stuff.


And don't underestimate the power of vanity. It isn't for function's sake that people exist in numbers sufficient to carry the fashion industry, for example.

It's an industry, after all. How much is a Chanel our a Louie Vuitton handbag or clutch going for these days? Oh, right; up to a quarter of a million USD.

Stupid, right? Who in their right mind would pay a quarter of a million dollars for a handbag, after all?

Does everyone even -want- such a handbag? ...They wouldn't sell a single one to anybody ever if the answer weren't a very bankable 'Yeah, most would happily have one if they could".

Does it work better than a handbag you bought from Target for $15 bucks? Nope, prolly not.

Bugger'd old world, innit? Vanity routinely and predictably outsells utility all over the place, and to the tune of some hilariously high profit margins. Nobody needs a Gucci suit I suppose.

But I guarantee you that the fatcats at EA know very well what a Gucci suit is. Some of them almost certainly wear them as a matter of course. Unless they prefer something like Armani, but, y'know, a statement is a statement.

In this case, "I have money" is the statement.

In the case of vanity gear in an MMO? "I did this thing" or "I did that thing".


Biggest difference is...literally anyone in an MMO can theoretically get the vanity gear.

Guess we're just lucky equipment modeling is something a junior computer draft artist can often do all by themselves when they're bored on lunch breaks, eh? I mean, heck, it wouldn't even cost a lot or demand resources not already available.

They'd just have to use them on a little different project and priority schedule in some cases.

I think the whole concept creates more social divides that we don't really need. We have enough of it in real life. I can see how this is going to turn into a Capitalism vs Socialism debate rather quickly.

I feel you on most of what you said. Me? I didn't really care for all that grinding for a special mount. Sure it looked cool but for me it was meh I can get to where I'm going on this. But that's just me.

I go back to content for 2 reasons.

1. To help a friend/guildie
2. For the fun of it (mostly that didn't happen in WoW)

As for PvP I never found Arenas in WoW to be competitive PvP. Call it my warped view of it but IMO you cannot have true competitive PvP with a gaping gear difference. Everyone must have comparative gear and classes need to be semi balanced. Two things that just didn't happen in WoW. FOTM classes ruled till they were nerfed but it didn't matter by then because they moved up enough and gained enough points to have better gear that they still pulled off some feeble wins.

Now this game doesn't have anything rated, ladders or anything like that for PvP but in the sub 50 bracket where they bring lower level players to have equivalent stats as the higher levels it starts to even the playing field and comes down to skill most of the time. In the 50 brackets when people do decide to play most at the moment have pretty good gear if not the best and the gear difference isn't so bad.

Players are understanding more and more what it takes to win and when you look at Huttball (at least on the 2 servers I play on) you're getting matches that go down to the wire. You got no idea how many 0-0, 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2 scores happening where it could of been anyone's game. On my low level Shadow that only PvPs outside of the class quests had a Voidstar match where EVERYONE was higher level. 43+ with 2 level 38s. Our side had the whole spectrum of levels and we still won. Was a fight from beginning to end, but that's what made it great. Skill was the determining factor there.

It is amazing what people can accomplish when they understand and use the mechanics as intended!

But it wouldn't create or foster social divides that hinge on diminished utility, and that's a big-huge thing to consider.


If, by completing your class quests, you were appropriately geared to jump right into hardmodes and operations at any difficulty level...would there be people that would seek to avoid the group content altogether if that were the only thing that changed?

You betcha. Would be a bad idea to leave it there. Hardmodes and raid-style content would need a new carrot; one that didn't create a sense of need or demand in anybody in order to function.

I think, and in fact I'd be willing to make a sizeable bet on, that more people would be happier to -try- such content and get into it if that sense of need and demand were removed in that capacity.

Make them -want- to do it because they -want- to look cool, IF they want to look cool in the ways the vanity options provide.

Sure, toss some super-spiffy top-notch utility gear in there as well, and make it bloody -BEAUTIFUL- to look at. Create gear with variable appearance options that occur nowhere else in the game except in that group content and nobody's sense of advancement will hinge on that in the utilitarian manner.

Utility is core. Utility is function. Don't demean your consumers and make them fight their schedules and their real life obligations to feel like they're enjoying your product to the max.

Don't do it. If we can learn just this one lesson from Blizzard's -failures- with WoW, let it be this one; look at how easy they're making it and continue to increasingly make it to get good gear.

This is why. It's too toxic to hinge the ego appeal on function; people need to function and, more importantly, FEEL LIKE THEY'RE FUNCTIONING VERY VERY WELL, to enjoy your game.

Vanity...is hilariously ignorable. But nobody wants to look like everybody else if they don't have to. Scale the options within easy reach to naturally bridge into group content.

I guarantee; yeah, I'm going there, I -guarantee-; that people in generall will complain less and there will be less hostility between 'casuals' and 'hardcore' people if -nobody NEEDS to do that content to mechanically advance-.

Vanity ego, for being optional, -BECAUSE- it's ignorable...holds a nearly unchallenged appeal. It isn't forcing anybody to do anything.

Justh it 50 and did all your class quests? Awesome, you're ready to join your buddies that're trying to progress through EV NM. You're ready to step confidently into a hardmode flashpoint and, yeah, probably still die a few times learning how to apply yourself.

Nobody will be able to look down on you because your gear is garbage in such a scenerio; there's no cause, it's not garbage. Mechanically, in such a scenerio, you are totally ready to dive headfirst into the endgame adventure.

And start defining yourself by your appearance, which will reflect your accomplishments directly. You won't have to say a word if you're in the above-theorized glossy black, silver trimmed with violent, streaming particle effects full Nightmare Mode suit.

Not a single word. Everyone will know that you busted your junk to get all the pieces for that. It'll do the bragging for you. You can go dance on a fencepost if you think that's the best use of your time, too.

The last thing any game needs is an epeen factor and its not lacking that anyway. No, what this game lacks is much more tangible than some players not being able armory bash folk.

This game needs epeen mounts. I'm tired of seeing rusty looking speeders everywhere.
Where is the Ferrari of all speeders. Beautiful mounts that only a few, hardcore or rich people can have.

(yep English is not my first language. I admit, I was being lazy and not reviewing my post. I will go through the effort to make it easier to read from now on.) ^_^

and yes Hard-cores do ruin the game experience of many players

a) They spoiler the game and the mechanics.
this not only ruin the "diversity" inside the game since everybody have to do the way the hardcore has found to be more effective (hardcore built/hardcore way to kill a boss/hardcore way to play minigame/etcetc...), but kill the social component of the game "asking for information" became >> "go check the site noob" and dulcis in fundo ruin the experience of "exploring" both the area and the dungeons for million of casuals they are taken by end (not with some insult on the way) and rush though the content like if they were "late"

b) Whine like no other
here there is no need of explanation they just get 50 in 2 weeks and then whine about everything and this is too easy and this is too hard and this has to change and why did they change this... EVERYTHING

c) tend to be rude with people that just started or that didn’t have the chance to learn yet...
if you play 8/10 hours a day it mean 150 hours in 2 week a casual player play 2/3 hours a day it means 30-45 hours in 2 week so you can't expect he know everything and yet you treat him like **** if they don’t know

etc.etc. there are millions of reason why hardcore are ruining the game I could go on and on and yet I don’t see any reason why they are good for the game... and your money are the same as mine so "I pay the account" it's not a good enough reason

I challenge you to tell me 1 thing that Hardcore are good for in a game... other then rush the content whine ruin the comunity insult(most of the time) and feeling superior over a couple of pixel(that only prove some psycological serious problem)

...Not only they actually will even be a burden for sociaty in future since a person that play 8 hours a day it's not really a person that the sociaty will actually find "usefull" in future with few expection obviously.