A few years back I was in the beta for "Star Trek Online" and wrote a beta forum post entitled "The Perception of Progress", detailing why the game wasn't working for me. If memory serves, it got a dozen or so responses and is mostly noteworthy in that it seemed like, for the only time ever, everyone agreed with me. Clearly a moment to savor.
I'd like to restate it it here, comparing it with WoW, and use it as the basis to discuss my one concern about "Guild Wars 2" (other than how long I'm going to have to wait...because next week's 4 hour stress test ain't cuttin' it!).
I love MMOs. I play them a lot. And sometimes, when an MMO hits a sweet spot, for a time, I'll play more than a lot. That phase doesn't last terribly long, but for a brief time life will consist of food, my daily ablutions, sleep, and game. And I'll even wake up early and be unable to get back to sleep (nowadays I'll take naps later in the day when that happens) and head off to play.
It's not to the level of obsession. If a friend wants to go out to dinner, I'll go. If I need to make a supply run to the store, that's not a problem. It's not unhealthy, it's just an adult's version of Christmas morning that lasts for a few days.
A much milder strain of the same...disorder...is what makes MMO players keep playing the games for months and years.
I've seen discussions of whether MMOs are like Skinner Boxes (wikipedia it if you don't know the reference) and we are like rats pressing the button repeatedly to get an ort of food. Whether or not it's really a Skinner Box type deal, I lack expertise in behavioral conditioning to comment, but there are certainly some obvious parallels.
So what keeps us pressing those (WASD, and 1-0) buttons?
The Perception of Progress.
When you first begin playing a game (let's go with WoW because, despite the amount of crap people throw at the game, most people have at least a passing familiarity with it so WoW functions as a "shared vocabulary" for discussing a lot of MMOs) you are weak.
So you decide to play a mage because...hey, fireballs! Well, not to start... (Note, I tried to track down a list of skills from WoW's launch and no-can-do. This is the Internet, it must be there somewhere, but my search skills weren't up to the task. So I'll be doing this from memory and will get stuff wrong!)
You start with frostbolt. And a staff. And a plain robe. And a song in your heart. You're a human, so you're hanging out in the Elwynn Forest, near the abbey. You pick up your first quests and attack your first critter, a wolf. Frostbolt, Frostbolt, then a couple thwacks with your staff. And so it begins!
You kill more wolves. You kill some kobolds and, yes, take candle! You are a quest-completing machine and pretty quick you've levelled up a few times and got...hot damn, Fireball spell! Oh, and a new staff that adds to your hit points.
Soon you finish up around the abbey with a couple more levels and some other nice new gear. You've got a few more spells to add to your repetoire. You quest throughout Elwynn Forest and eventually move on to Westfall. More quests, more levels, more spells, more loot, new zone, and so on.
Sure you are mostly just hitting a very few buttons for your "rotation" of spells, but you're getting more powerful with every quest, every level, every zone.
This embodies the Perception of Progress. Generally, for any given fight (outside of instanced "dungeon" play) you're only hitting a couple of keys. Probably the same keys as you move spells around to make it easier to handle your rotation. For me, the 3 becomes my spammed skill with 4 and 5 for other commonly used ones. Generally 1 is whatever my defensive "oh shit!" skill is and 2 for an instant damage type spell. The buttons don't change, the skills do.
But as you level up...you get new skills (new spells in this case). Fireball does more damage than Frostbolt. Frost Nova freezes a bunch of critters in place where Frostbolt slows one down. You have more options and those options just feel more powerful.
And you're getting new equipment. A lot of MMO players are loot whores. I love getting a cool item. It's like winning a very small, virtual lottery. And that plain wood staff gets traded in for one with +2 stamina. And that for one with +4 int. And that gets upgraded, and so on and eventually you're wielding "Zin'Rokh, Destroyer of Worlds". (Yes, I know, that's a sword not a staff. But it's got such a great name I had to go with it.) Again...you feel mighty!
You're going to new zones. The pastoral Elwynn Forest borders on the haunted Duskwood filled with werewolves and zombies (and the one of the creepiest storylines in an MMO ever). And soon you're in Stranglethorn Vale and then the Plaguelands (quite the vacation destination) and Upper Black Rock Spire and Molten Core...and in every one of these the monsters you're killing are tougher, the sights are more spectacular or daunting, and you are all the awesomer for it!
And here's where STO had the problem with me. Those things I mentioned above are the kinds of things that drive me. That make me keep pressing the same buttons over and over. That Perception of Progress. And in STO, they just weren't there.
Oh you got new skills...congrats, now your weapons officer can overload your photon torpedos once every 45 seconds to do 20% more damage. That's nice, but it just doesn't evoke an emotional response.
New items? Yep, my new phasers do 106 damage a shot instead of 100. That's like...6% right? Uhm...OK. Nice.
Oh, I get to move to a new sector? Crap...space just looks like space. And most of the time the ships are so far away they look the same.
The progression in STO was in no way fundamentally different than that of WoW, but my perception of it was.
And that's why STO never "grabbed" me.
And now to my one concern for Guild Wars 2.
It's got zones to progress to (and you can even go back to redo old content and get some value out) that look cool and awesome and are filled with uglier uglies than the last.
It's certainly got nice "Phat Brand Lewtz(tm)" to make you look and feel cooler.
But it's missing one leg on my three-legged Stool Of Planted In Front Of The Computer For Hours...the skills.
Yes, as you level up you get the traits to flesh out your spec. The traits are where you can really tune your toon, so to speak. But the skills you'll grind out in the first few hours. You'll want to, just to be able to play the way you want. And, just a few levels in, you'll have (in large measure) all the skills you'll be using for the next 75 levels or so.
In WoW the buttons never changed, but the skills did. In GW2, neither will change. Yes, I know, you can change the skills by changing weapons, and some classes have addition mechanisms, but I was LOVING elementalist with double daggers and fire. So much fun. Now, in groups and such I'll mix things up, but I can see myself spending a looooooong time with just double daggers in fire. Hitting a small number of buttons for the same skills for many levels. Yes, I can change my weapons (or element), but that same problems exists...in this one segment, I won't perceive much progress.
It's not a huge deal (I hope)...but it does concern me. 80 levels is a long way pushing the same 5 buttons for the same 5 skills.
-Lens
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