Three Trends in MMO That Grind Piki Geek’s Gears

Theme park MMOs, the developer’s equation of casual with easy and the uprising of MMOs that put the focus on solo content are three trends that have been bothering Piki Geek’s editors enough for them to whip up an editorial focused exclusively on them. Here’s a snip:

Casual = Easy

In the world of MMOs, casual and hardcore never truly denoted difficulty they simply categorized the time needed to achieve certain goals. Grinding up to High Warlord in vanilla World of Warcraft wasn’t hardcore because it was difficult it was hardcore because it took literally months of grinding to do. Likewise, casual things were not necessary called (casual) because they were easy. (Casual) raiding, for example, only referred to the amount of time spent actually raiding not the level of intensity of the raid itself.

This is the reason it is so frustrating that developers insist on thinking that all of their (casual) players are hungering for a watered down game. Just because we don’t want to spend our entire day playing your game doesn’t mean we don’t want you to challenge us. Throw us a roadblock, not a grind.

Unfortunately, MMO developers have read this completely backwards.

The result is meaningless, easy, disposable content that leaves a terrible taste in everyone’s mouth. It’s the (theme park) style gone to the extreme developers seem to think that just because casual gamers don’t have as much time to dedicate to a video game that they’re completely uninterested in any challenging content whatsoever.

It’s this line of thinking that gives us the leveling content found in most modern MMOs. It’s mindless content that’s no different than the grindy, repetitive stuff of old. You don’t have to think about your abilities, you never have to worry about death, and your choices, for the most part, have no real impact on the game or your performance.

Sure this new (casual) content might take less time to complete, but it’s hardly inspired. In reality, it’s just the (hardcore) experience of old chopped up into bite-sized bits. That’s hardly evolution, and casual players deserve better.

And don’t tell me you can’t do challenging, interesting things, either. Step out of the box that requires every piece of content to be a carrot on a stick.