Demeterus
Caldari
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Posted - 2009.01.28 11:29:00 -
[2]
 Originally by: Kessiaan
Edited by: Kessiaan on 28/01/2009 10:18:12
Edited by: Kessiaan on 28/01/2009 10:08:31
Originally by: Kaiser Sorano
I find "LOL yeah, grindfest eh." to be dripping with delicious irony, having come from a player of WoW
WoW rewards grinding with a near-constant stream of cookies. EvE rewards success and doesn't care how you get there. When people complain about the grind, they aren't complaining about the grind (even though they think they are), they're complaining they aren't being fed enough cookies.
Now, in EvE you CAN grind your way to success but it's horribly inefficient (and thus you'll be hungry for cookies). But when someone comes here from WoW, a game where you can actually get banned for doing things other than the formally approved dev-way, to a game like EvE where they're dropped in a rookie ship and told to figure it out, they don't know that doing anything other than grinding is even possible, it's so ingrained into their brains. Same with pvp (you can blame nonstop the "I need XXX SPs" and "I can't ever catch up" misconceptions firmly on level-based MMOs).
Hopefully the new player experience coming March 10 will help with this. I think a big part of EvE's infamous learning cliff is simply that it's so different that most people just can't figure it out. The game is so alien to anything they've played before that they literally have nowhere to start from and just quit out of frustration.
But, in the end this whole (stupid) debate is good for EvE - I played WoW for two years (getting close to that much in EvE  ) and I can tell you from experience that WoW is just as good at recruiting noobs as EvE is at retaining vets, and WoW is just as bad at holding onto vets as EvE is at holding on to noobs. The fact that EvE ranks very highly in the larger MMO community's collective mind as an alternative to WoW (and class/level/gear based MMOs in general) ensures that lots of bored vets from other games will find their way onto trials here.
This. I totally agree with this. I admit to logging into WoW now and then - I've got a level 80 warlock romping around the Ghostlands. But I log into WoW to play a solo game with other people, so to speak. WoW is, in essence, a solo game with a bit of gang activity on the fringes. When I don't want to think, when I don't want to bother with my corp, my alliance, or the two dozen other more complicated social challenges of Eve - I log into WoW to bash a few NPC's a bit.
I think the social bit is what makes Eve special. You can't really win in this game without cooperation with others and without competition from others. In WoW you can. And that makes all the difference in the world, if you ask me. |