If I’m excited about something, even something new and shiny, what does it matter to anyone else? Why have some MMO players decided that it’s foolhardy to eagerly dive into a new game and be thrilled for it on the week/month of its release? Why is there pressure to temper this excitement with some sort of artificial cool, aloof observations about the track of each MMO that comes out?
This general feeling is not new in the blogosphere. For a while now there’s been a sort of under-the-covers movement to make hype, anticipation, and excitement over MMOs a shameful taboo. The unwritten statement is that if you’re a gamer who wants to be seen as credible, you need to view every launch through an extremely cynical lens and be a strict watchdog against falling for another MMO that will eventually leave you, hurt you, and make you even more bitter for the future.
I understand where this sentiment comes from. Part of it comes out of backlash from the veterans against the more excitable new crowd, but a lot of it stems from disappointing experiences. Some folks find themselves disillusioned when they discover that MMOs can’t hold their interest forever (which makes perfect sense, but still comes as a surprise to some) or when they finally burn out and rewrite history so that the previous months or years have been a total waste instead of a good time followed by an eventual falling out with a title. I think some of it may even come with this ridiculous notion that games can “win” or “lose” somehow, and if we jump on board before the final verdict is in, we’re opening ourselves up to a lot of hurt.
So if we’re going to boil MMO gamers down into three categories, you have the players who are in an MMO “home” and are content, you have the players who try other games for various lengths of time for the fun, and you have those that are pinning the greatest hope on a specific upcoming title as being The One that will be everything they want in an MMO and they’ll never need anything else again. I’ve always been in the first and second. Personally, I don’t think the “hopers” will ever find their dream MMO, because I think they’re often chasing something that won’t exist and they’ve never learned to be satisfied with anything they find.
I’m far more tired with negative opinions than I am with disappointing games. I’m weary of writing posts with all sorts of qualifying statements so that readers understand just how balanced and not-buying-into-any-hype I’m trying to be.
I’m excited about games. So what?
Really, what does it matter at all if I like a game on the first day? If I continually try new MMOs and am thrilled with many of them? Why is there this weird stigma that if we game-hop, we’re liable to get gamer STDs or something? It’s so disconnected with how the rest of the video game culture works that we come off looking like alien clowns trying to master a dance where we say we like games without showing that we like them too much because we don’t want the other kids to think less of us for it.
Is it bad to admit to an emotional response and connection to games? Isn’t this what makes gaming so great sometimes?
It’s 2012. We need to ditch this twisted, convoluted notion that MMOs can only be appreciated if they meet extremely stringent standards and a certain time limit has passed. We need to remember that these are just games. They can be enjoyed on day one or day whatever. They can and often are fun right out of the gate. The anticipation is part of what makes following these games awesome. Not every game is meant to last forever, and it’s okay if we play for just the first month or stick around or pop in and out.
What I’m saying is it doesn’t matter if I’m getting excited about these games, because at the very least, it only applies to me and I’m a big boy. I have survived leaving many MMOs and actually think fondly of many of them. I’m glad for my time in them. I love talking about them. At the most, my excitement pours out in this blog and may influence a few readers. But if I’m going to be an influence, I’d rather be seen as a person who urges people to like the games that are in this hobby we’re supposed to be enjoying than a person who covers MMOs but apparently just does so to warn everyone else away. Because of the STDs.
There are those people who will never be happy unless they have something to complain about. This is true in life as it is in MMO’s. Frankly, I don’t think these people are worth my time and effort. There are far more important things to be doing, like playing games I enjoy.
hear, hear! Syp, you don’t have anything to apologize for. I think what get’s bloggers in trouble is when they eagerly anticipate new titles, then turn on them like ravenous wolves. I’ve seen a few bloggers do this.
I do not think you’ve ever done this, even with WAR. You came, you saw, you played, you enjoyed, and you moved on. There’s no bitterness there.
Don’t get jaded man! That’s when you should probably take a break from blogging.
I hear ya on this. I’m probably guilty of seeming-apathy towards TSW, but it’s not that I don’t like the game, it’s that we just don’t have the time or funds to spend on another MMO at the moment, and I tend to put my fingers in my ears and go “LA-LA-LA-LA-LA” when I see stuff about it so that I don’t get tempted.
Go forth in excitement and joy, and apologize not for your euphoria!
I love to shamelessly gush about Guild Wars 2 and my other favorite games to an audience that wants to hear it. My post about GW2′s launch date is a prime example of this: http://maleficincantations.com/2012/06/28/a-somewhat-religious-experience/
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Often times I feel like the only receptive audience is an echo chamber–other Guild Wars 2 fans and my friends who already like the same games as me and don’t need convincing. I’m happy to share my thoughts and experiences with like-minded people, but it would be great to convince new people that GW2 will be a good game that they should play with me.
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Sadly, my other friends and acquaintances are very jaded toward anything new. I’ve been asked “so how is Guild Wars 2 different from other MMO’s?” by these people, but even if I explain about the dynamic event system, true cooperative PvE, epic world PvP, lack of grind, and revamped actiony combat system, the response is always the same: “meh.” It’s like they only asked so they could reject it, rather than actually open their minds to something new.
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To be fair, the games industry makes it very easy to be jaded. Especially when even a big name release like Diablo III has a launch fraught with problems and a grindy, unsatisfying endgame. The thinking goes, “well if D3 can’t be excellent, then what can?” It’s easy to write off any hype as a bunch of hot air and fanboys/girls as delusional, even with the aid of mounting evidence like the very positive response people have had to the GW2 beta weekends.
Before I got into MMOs, I bought full priced games a little too frequently. I’d play them, get a week, maybe two of enjoyment out of them, then get bored and need to find something new. MMOs allowed me to extend that time a bit (sometimes), but it did change my viewpoint about what a “successful” game is.
I’m not looking for a game to be a critical success, though it’s nice for MMOs to last a while so I can get maximum enjoyment out of them. But if I can spend 2 weeks enjoying the game, I feel like it’s earned my money to a degree. Some just do it better than others.
What I’m saying, I guess, is that people judge games by a criteria that is difficult to reach, “must hold my attention for a really long time.” I don’t agree with that. Keeping my attention for a length of time equalling the number of movies I can watch for that price seems more reasonable.
I think its great that you blog in such a positive way about the games you play, and the new ones that you’re looking forward to. So many of the other blogs I read tend to approach a game from its imperfections (like you can ever have a perfect game!), and make statements as to why a game has “failed” as if those statements are fact rather than opinion – its almost as if they’ve forgotten that gaming is meant to be FUN.
Thanks to your comments, I’ve taken a second look at games that I never thought I’d be interested in, as well as trying different things in the games I currently play.
Be as excited and enthusiastic as you want to be
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I agree entirely! It’s a game, and more people need to adopt a zen-like calm about them: play when you enjoy playing, leave when you don’t enjoy playing.
I also don’t get the need to “dump” on games that don’t meet the current blogger’s (not you) favorite standard. For example, there is a blogger who is currently in love with EVE (not naming names or linking, but I’m sure folks can make educated guesses). I mean that’s great, awesome really. But this person also goes on wonder what more MMOs aren’t like EVE, EVE is doing something right since it is growing constantly since launch, etc. I want to scream that I know it is popular to rail on a certain market leader, but objectively, they are doing SOMETHING right since they have a giant following (assuming customers are not in fact, duped suckers – which gets into disrepect of fellow gamers and their tastes). And while EVE is growing, even the most diehard fan must admit its appeal is much smaller, and maybe if “every” game were like EVE the entire MMO industry would be smaller, since you know, not everybody wants to play an EVE-like game. What’s wrong with having a huge number of choices, even if many are fundamentally similar? Play the ones you like or are curious about, and just ignore the rest? There’s just so many hours in a day of free time, geez.
Disappointment can be a very bitter pill. Taken often enough, it can make the people taking it bitter, too, so that it’s quite hard to punch through their shell of dissatisfaction. My buddy’s suffering from this right now; he was disappointed by Cataclysm, disappointed by SW:ToR, disappointed by D3, and now he’s refusing to try Secret World because he believes, regardless of my efforts otherwise, that it’s going to be a big disappointment, too.
I think some of the longevity standards WoW has set over the last 7 years have also made it hard for people to accept the 3 month cycle of some MMOs. Personally, I’m with you. I’m over the disappointment. I took my bitter pills and went that way, too, but at least there was a seed of hope planted with TSW’s pre-release media and GW2. We’ll see how they pan out.
Yay for games!
Boo on STDs…
Yay for Syp and his love of games!
Boo on negative nancys…
Yay for selection and competition which serves to improve the game I like.
I guess game hopping can be seen as sending a signal to devs/publishers that long time investments dont pay out and instead further encourage building up hype, then cashing in on box sales, maybe create an ingame store, then let it rot away. repeat.
“Disappointment can be a very bitter pill. Taken often enough, it can make the people taking it bitter, too, so that it’s quite hard to punch through their shell of dissatisfaction.”
One look at the comments at Massively shows that there are many of these people. There are quite a few regulars who are so jaded they seem to have no passion, or even pleasure, left when it comes to MMOs, but yet they keep on posting about them. It’s like they want others to be miserable too; misery loves company and all that crap. Name an MMO, any MMO, and you just know that any article about said MMO will lure in the same people with the same tired, old arguments and soul-crushing negativity. Every single time.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being excited about a game! However, pretty much every game is going to be exciting when it’s shiny and new, assuming it’s not terrible. So while I’m down with my friends being excited about the latest release, I also don’t take it too seriously.
I wrote a post recently about how I’m a bit apathetic towards TSW because I’ve seen the hype cycle a few times through. I’m not sure if this post is a reaction to mine (I wouldn’t think so, my little blog being what it is), but I would like to note that there’s a difference between not trusting the hype cycle and saying that it shouldn’t happen. As gamers, it’s only natural that we get excited about upcoming games and as bloggers we should be writing from that place; posts written from sincere emotions are always more fun to read. Yet anyone who has seen the cycle a few times through can tell you that it doesn’t last in the same way we see it in the first 30 days. What people say is amazing today will be meh in 90. That’s another natural move and one ushered at least in part by the wide array of available and upcoming MMOs.
I would never expect people to stop writing about what they’re excited about, or to stop being excited in the first place, but pointing out the cycle — especially in a time when more and more newcomers are finding the MMO blog scene — isn’t a bad thing either.
My approach is similar to yours, Syp, but I understand what some people are saying when they see a more laissez-faire approach to consuming as unacceptable. There’s a good argument to be made that accepting mediocrity leads to a lowering of production standards, for one thing. More importantly, not all MMO enthusiasts want the same from the genre. Some want a considerably more serious, focused hobby than the mass-market throwaway popular entertainment we’re largely being offered. For them, the trend is threatening and needs to be opposed.
Personally I think the genre will expand and deepen and there will be enough good choices for everyone, so I feel quite zen about the way things are going. I also find I like a lot more MMOs than I dislike. If I don’t like one I generally waste no more time either playing it or writing about it, unless I can think of something funny.
Syp, the problem is that genuine enthusiasm is up against two opposing forces. The first is the “too cool for school” crowd who are determined to be down on anything, especially if it’s popular, because they fondly believe that by the simple act of despising anything that is widely liked they will elevate themselves above the sheeplike masses and into the discerning elite. These people are just shallow poseurs who can’t actually form an opinion of their own worth listening to, so just ignore them.
The other thing you’re up against is the genuine anti-fanboi backlash. I’m not using the term “fanboi” to describe people who happen to like a game, or even people who genuinely like a game a lot. The “fanbois” are the people who are unreasonably vehement advocates of a game, usually one that’s unpublished and they have nothing to base their opinions on except a couple of press releases and their own fervent wishes. They also tend to attack other games as a way of validating their opinion. These are the people who have been posting “this game sucks and I’m quitting it to play GW2″ for at least three years, during most of which time they had no concrete experience of how good GW2 was (or wasn’t) to base that statement on. Not surprisingly, there’s a lot of negative reaction against this sort of behaviour, and those reacting can’t always see the difference between rampant fanboism and a genuine positive opinion with some grounding in reality. Not a lot you can do about that except to stay positive, give good reasons WHY you’re enthusiastic and not big up your favoured game by doing down everyone else (as if you would). Those of us with functioning brain cells will be able to tell the difference.
There’s a heck of a lot of negative assumptions about why someone might be upset or turned off by your excitement — more in the comments then in your own writing, but I think you’re missing a few reasons as well. I know I wasn’t motivated to post, but I have been rolling my eyes a bit at your embrace of The Secret World. Because it seems just like your embrace of SWTOR before that, and just like your embrace of well, hell, I don’t feel like thinking that hard about this or reading back through your blog. There might not be another parallel before SWTOR, but that one was enough for me to be eye rolling — mostly because I remember reading your post critical of TESO and being more amused that everything you wrote was exactly what I thought about SWTOR. I think I said I would have given you cookies if you’d taken that stance for the earlier game.
Although I would never have brought it to you if you hadn’t written this article, allow me to explain why I roll my eyes. There are a finite number of people that support the MMO industry. Whether or not you take the word of the analyst who named the number and claimed we’ve reached it is not important, there’s clearly a finite number of people in the world, and finite subset of those people that will pay to play MMOs. When a popular blogger who has influence jumps on each new game about two to three months before launch as the best thing ever, writes regularly about the game for about two months, then sort of only vaguely mentions it from time to time as it fades off his radar, I find that sad. It’s a sign that the industry is not doing well, given the link between retention and success in their business model.
And on a personal bias note, my immediate reaction is that the writer is immature. I’m wise enough these days to know that’s an assumption and unlikely to be a reflection of reality. Even when having that reaction, it is not an adjective I would use to describe you — it is not part of the Platonic Form of Syp that I have constructed in my mind. But still, when I was young, each new book by an author, each new movie in a drawn out franchise, each new album by an artist . . . unless they were just terrible, they were the greatest one yet. So my personal bias makes that excitement seem absurd, even if I do try, as much as anyone can, not to color my understandings of other people based on personal biases I’m aware of.
But those complaining to you might not be aware of their personal bias. It doesn’t necessarily mean they are “too cool for school” or “jaded” or jerks or anything I’ve read above. It might mean they are not experienced enough to understand their own reactions. But even that might not be true: some are probably just passionate about the hobby and feel you have a pattern that isn’t good for the industry.
Don’t stop qualifying your excitement, please. You may tire of it, but it makes your writing, even about games I’m not interested in, much more honest and useful. If I want all excitement all the time, I’ll read nothing but press releases. From you I can gain an understanding of why or how someone enjoys a game that I find flawed while noting that you understand the flaws. And that’s why I read.
It’s your excitement about gaming and your even handed approach that has me reading you daily for at least a couple years now. Even when you gush about a title, you still present reasons and impressions in a mature and even-handed way. You are nowhere near the lushes who say “OMG! GW2 will be great & awesome!” without really any concrete reasons. Conversely, I really appreciate that when a title gets you down, you don’t bash it. There are a number of blogs I’ve stopped reading cuz they when a title didn’t meet their expectation, they simply trashed the game. Some of these guys just pile on – if (in their opinion) a game doesn’t deliver what they expect (even when their expectations had never been promised by the devs), then the game, the devs, the publishers, the investors and anyone still playing the game are just total morons or idiots and deserve to be flayed alive like someone in TSW.
I also appreciate the honesty you convey in trying to make sure you give the games you like the appropriate amount of time, balancing that with family and other commitments. You share your humanity with us as you discuss various topics and I, for one, really appreciate that.
Keep up the good work and hope your mission trip goes smoothly!
Don’t let the downers dampen your enthusiasm! I love reading blog posts (yours included) where the author is genuinely excited about the game they are talking about. Isn’t that why we all game after all – to have fun, to be excited? Sometimes that enthusiasm is catching and I’m exposed to a game I haven’t thought about trying before and now am excited to try out.
On the other hand what bothers me is two-fold. 1) People who let their enthusiasm override everything they say and end up posting things that read as facts when in fact they are just opinions based on the writers own personal desires. Post any opinion you want, I’m good with it, but don’t make it appear like a fact when it’s not.
And 2) People who bash games – especially those who do so after only having limited or no experience with the actual game. It doesn’t make you “cool” and it doesn’t make me want to read more of what you have to say. You might have very valid concerns and ideas to communicate but I’m not going to be on the listening end because I will have already shut down and moved on.
Anyways nothing really new in what I had to say, I just felt motivated to type it out because I’ve read so much negativity lately that I wanted to comment that I enjoy that you’re excited about the games you play.
I like your enthusiasm, Syp. For most of us, gaming is a hobby, something we engage in purely for fun. If you weren’t excited about the games you play and write about, I would seriously question why you were in the business of blogging about games.
Frankly, it is easier to snark about a game – just whine and moan, any child can do it. And there are certainly enough snarky blogs out there – google Eve Online and you are sure to hit a bunch. I, for one, find it refreshing to read blogs like Biobreak, where both the blogger and, for the most part, the comments take a more positive approach to gaming. It may not be “cool” or even “intellectual” to be too enthusiastic about some new game, but life is short and games are fun! I save my more dispassionate views for “real world” matters.
Oh, and although I was doing a bit of eyerolling myself while reading the comment, bonus points to Sauceleah for working “Platonic Form” into a comment on a gaming blog. It made my Epicurean heart twitch, just a bit.
I would assume that the disconnect comes from MMOs being designed (and expected) to last longer than the first month. Or the first three months. A lot of the activities you are expected to do in those games only make sense over the long-term, such as daily quests or farming gear. Personally, I am a fan treating MMOs as single-player games anyway, but I still get the same disingenuous vibe when I see gushing praise for an ostensibly long-term commitment that you know will be so much dust and smoke less than a month later on those same blogs.
If I wanted unmetered praise, I would read these companies’ press releases and other advertisements. I prefer to know exactly what I am buying, warts and all, from someone who actually appreciates the value of my gaming dollars.
Hey Guys! There’s a awesome new forum that just started for Guild Wars 2 at http://www.GuildWars2Tyria.com – You should all check it out! They may be giving away free copies of Guild Wars 2 in the next few weeks!