I think I'm gonna move my desk to a cave. Take the laptop with me, do all my work there, save it, upload it when I get home. Yes, I'm having one of those days again.
Dear mystery neighbour. If I don't respond when you knock on my door, even though you can hear me in there, then I probably don't want to talk to you. Please don't start hammering against the back door. Please don't knock on my window. Go. Away.
Just because I'm sitting in front of my PC all day does not mean I'm lonely and waiting to socialise. I'm trying to do my fucking job. During the day, this place is my office.
Yes, you may see me playing video games with no pants on whenever you peek through the window. That still means I'm working. My job is that awesome. Or you may find me testing my controller's rumble function with my genitals. A lot. Which means I'm not necessarily working, but I'm still not longing for your company.
So before you knock on my fucking door, ask yourself: Is my house on fire? If not, fuck off. Are you on fire? If so, call 999 or bother some other neighbour. Are you currently bleeding to death? Same thing. Are you on fire and/or bleeding to death, your phone is dead and none of the other neighbours respond? Fine, knock on my door if you must, but then please wait the fuck outside the house, where I can hose your remains off the stairs. Don't burn or bleed all over the carpet in the god damn corridor.
Maybe I should get a new job. Game design sounds fun. Sell people the same shit every year and they never notice it until they've given you their money. Seriously, have you nimrods learned absolutely nothing in the 8+ years WoW has been around, successfully destroying all of its competition within just a month or two?
Every year, with every fucking MMO release, I see the same shit repeat itself. Neverwinter. Holy fuck. The euphoria on the forums. The vast amounts of stupid people. Game wasn't even out yet and people posted about how they have spent hundreds of dollars on founders' packs, cash shop currency and all kinds of useless fluff. And the way they justify their own idiocy, god fucking dammit!
"I have a good feeling about this game and this company. I know I won't be disappointed when I support them, I know a good thing when I see one." Blah fucking blah. What happened? The game turned out to be just another MMORPG. Not a bad one, mind, but there are dozens of good MMOs out there, most of them more or less free to play. No one gives a crap about good anymore. Good ain't good enough.
Anyone looking at closed beta footage, previews, interviews, you know, fucking information you get for free on the internet with little to no research involved, you coulda seen it coming. It's not really a surprise or anything. But look at the Neverwinter forums now, a little over a month after launch. Sorry, "open beta".
The same dipshits, who originally bragged about spending hundreds in real currency on a game they didn't know shit about, now demand their money back. Some of them go as far as having everything refunded through the credit card company, which borders on fraud. The American way. Customer is always right, "if this game was a car", that kinda shit. So you go and spend a ton of money on mounts, dyes, pets and god knows what, you receive all of that stuff, it all works, but then you don't really like the game, so you go and charge your money back. For stuff you've received, that wasn't broken or faulty. Nice. I'm starting to see why some people throw out so much money on virtual shit to begin with. Doesn't really hurt when you're planning on taking it all back a little while later, huh? Assholes.
Now the exact same thing is about to happen with Elder Scrolls Online. Random poll on Facebook. "Do you think this game is going to be the next MMO hit?" And I dared to say no. Because the game doesn't really offer anything new or groundbreaking. Holy shit. The last time I've seen so many personal insults and death threats on facebook was when somebody posted a video that showed someone "drowning" a bag full of puppies. Mind you, I never said the game was gonna be shit or anything, I merely said it's nothing new. People actually demanded I "prove" these things instead of just saying them. Because, you know, the internet isn't full of previews and fact sheets and shit, available to anyone who is willing to look for them.
According to the lynch mob on Facebook, this game is gonna be the next big thing, because of (optional) 1st person combat and because of the "fantastic game world" you'll want to explore, sans quest hubs and all. Right. Because a modernized combat system totally helped Age of Conan, Tera and Neverwinter to become major blockbuster games, right? 1st person perspective as a groundbreaking new feature? Funny fuckers. And the whole "go explore, no questhubs" stuff is great, but that didn't make Guild Wars 2 the next big thing, either. In fact, people just look up maps on the internet and walk from one important location to another, just the way they do in MMORPGs with exclamation points and quest markers. Durrr! And what else is there? Raids? PvP? Yay. Never seen that kinda stuff before.
And don't get me started on Tamriel. Why do people suddenly consider Tamriel to be such an amazing setting? It's generic, derivative high fantasy. And even if it was as great as people make it out to be - since when does a powerful setting or franchise make a good game? Is anyone still playing SWTOR? You may love or hate Star Wars, but you can't deny the SW-license is infinitely stronger than Tamriel. And what good did that do, again? Lord of the Rings? Conan? Warhammer? Ha!
But the whole drama repeats. People are blind, naive and stupid. They believe this is the next big thing. If anyone disagrees, they consider it a personal insult. Then let them play for a month. Maybe two months. Until they see they're still playing just another MMORPG, where people do the exact same shit they do in every MMORPG. And suddenly, the same idiots who openly attacked everyone for not getting all hyped up get butthurt. Worst game ever, nothing but empty promises, huge disappointment, don't play this shit, blah, blah, blah. SWTOR all over again. Neverwinter all over again. Every fucking online game since WoW all over again. The cycle repeats. Over and over. People learn nothing.
Let me give you a little hint, you bunch of sheep: Have you played WoW to death, possibly since day one, got more and more annoyed with it and eventually gave up on it because even the thought of coming back bores you?
Don't. Buy. Fucking. MMORPGs.
What bores you isn't the setting. It's not the classes, the balance changes or the damn dungeons. It's the very genre. Repeat the same shit over and over again for years. Farm tokens. Repeat daily quests. NOBODY likes that shit. Why do you think people quit playing SWTOR when they were done with the personal story? Because after that, it's WoW with lightsabers. On a funny side note, I said exactly that during the beta of SWTOR. People told me I'm clueless and I should go fuck myself. You know. Those guys who stopped playing four weeks later. Because it was actually just WoW with lightsabers. Did I mention this is exactly what's going on with TESO right now? :P
Why do you think there is absolutely zero information on Titan, other than PR-bullshit stating it's gonna completely re-define the genre? Why do you think they had to "start over"? Because nobody fucking knows how to stop MMORPGs from being so fucking repetitive and boring when you reach the level cap. Guild Wars 2 tried it by completely removing the endgame. So people bitch about how there's no endgame. Neverwinter lets you buy endgame gear with real cash, so you don't have to do daily crap and dungeons if you don't want to. People bitch about that, too. And classic, WoW-style endgame, where you farm tokens, reputation and other shit for meaningless purple crap. Come on - that's the kind of stuff which made you believe games like TESO could end your misery in the first place.
Maybe the era of MMORPGs, if there has ever been such a thing, has come to an end. Maybe there should be more decent RPGs with (optional) multiplayer. Because what is it that many of us enjoy the most, really? Level up, unlock new skills, explore vast new landscapes. We only stop when the growth and the exploration ends and the grind and the repetition start. A good (offline) RPG ends where MMORPG endgame begins. There's your problem.
-Cat
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