The last online game for which I held out great hopes was The Secret World. Despite labeling itself an "M"-MO it resolved, after a while, into yet another woefully repetitive small-team gear-grinding game. However, it was also an adventure game, and that meant lots of cutscenes, storytelling and puzzle-solving. Surprisingly good storytelling, and even decent puzzle-solving, all told. Professional quality voice acting, shockingly expressive and engaging texts, well-fitted aural accompaniment, all drew in a better quality of gamers than you'd usually run across online. For a while. Then the repetition set in and all that was left were the dregs, the mindless grinding rabble.
Currently I've been diving headlong into Warframe, a game designed for mindless grinding rabble. Its writing is abysmally bad. It's largely a simplistic arcade game where you constantly gun down random baddies jumping out of the walls at you from every direction. No planning, no coordination, no player identity or relevant decisions, no logistics or strategy. Just constant action for brainless little twerps whose highest mental functions are limited to reflex. However, it did add quite a bit of variety in weapon and damage types, combat moves, resource acquisition, etc. so that the few who are so inclined can actually think about what they're doing.
TSW's playerbase contained a large proportion of players around my age, thirty-somethings who remembered old-school quality.
Warframe seems almost entirely composed of idiot teenage brats.
TSW's players meekly accepted the game's constant degradation into senseless grinding and can be found repeating the same exact 3% of missions with the same exact fights in the same exact order every time. They whine at the slightest difficulty.
Warframe's players argue about gear loadouts, get excited about new challenges, hunt rather tenaciously for rare drops without specifically being pointed at them, adapt to the game's randomized content.
Why are the ignorant, degenerate snot-nosed little dipshits suddenly looking more alive than my own, more discerning peers?
I have a request for my generation:
Please don't get old.
No comments:
Post a Comment