Some background:
Vanguard, Saga Of So Much Potential We Endure The Endless Bugs And System-Choking Demands, has been officially in paid beta...I mean, released....for a month now. As a reward for players who have been sticking out the growing pains, Sigil is having a "double XP weekend", where for every kobold you kill, you get the XP for another one, free! You would think this would be cause for endless celebration, especially since 'bout near everyone and their brother has lost XP due to bugs, either directly or due to a bug killing you in such a way that you can't reclaim your tombstone and recover most of your death loss.
Ha ha, foolish mortals!
No, some people feel anything which makes the leveling process less painful than walking over rusty razor blades is "wimping out", and are (30 days into the release of a game which ought to last 5-8 years) predicting doom, doom, doom.
Here's what I wrote in reply to one poster:
He wrote:
Time equals achievement.
Things that take time and dedication are very statisfying for many people. Playin g a shooter game you bought, and finishing it 24 hours is nearly not as statisfying as finishing something that took you months.
I replied:
That depends on how you spend those months.
I *suck* at reflex games. I have the reaction speed of a tortoise on quaaludes. I have trouble with the fast-paced action of Pong.
Years ago, I got TIE Fighter for the PC. I played it from the first scenario all the way through to the last scenario of the two expansions the game came with. It took me months and greatly expanded my vocabulary.
It was worth it because, difficult as it was to play each scenario, I knew I just had to beat it and then I'd move on. Even if I had to play each scenario a dozen times to win it, sooner or later, I would, and I'd be rewarded with a new challenge and new plot developments and new ships to fly or fight against.
Now, suppose that, instead of having to complete each scenario once, I had to complete each one ten times.
Would that make the game ten times harder? No.
Would it make me more 'leet' if I did it? No.
Would I quickly get bored replaying scenarios not for the challenge of beating them, but solely because I had to beat them multiple times for no good reason? Yes.
Or let's take an FPS. I won Doom I with no cheats, a rare achievement for me. I died a lot. Again, it was worth it because I knew I was progressing, that each time I got a little further in before I was demon chow, discovering secrets, learning strategies.
Would the game have been more fun and challending if every corridor simply respawned over and over and I had to clear each level 10 times? No.
Taking a long time to reach a goal is very worthwhile -- when the progress itself is not artificially slowed by pointless repetition. A game isn't twice as hard if you have to kill twice as many mobs -- it's twice as hard if the mobs are twice as hard to kill. Without a sense of worthwhile progress following a reasonable investment of playtime, there's no point.
MMORPGs are Skinner boxes. If the box fails to dispense the yummy treats, though, the conditioning fails.
Anyone who doesn't know what a Skinner box is,
look here. Now you understand the design of MMORPGs.
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