ctr2yellowbird said:

Tallgeese said:

My main issue with WAR, WoW and several others like it is the monthly fee, I resent paying for a game I have already paid for. I know I'm in the miniority here, 10 million WoW players who abuse their parents credit card can't be wrong. It just doesn't sit right with me, and I feel it also is one of the contributing reasons for people playing those games to excessive levels.

I chose to research video game addiction as my writing topic for an academic writing course, and, actually, monthly fees have very little to do with why some gamers play excessively. The most supported reason for excessive video gaming by advocates of video game addiction is that addictive gaming is often a manifestation of "underlying problems." Also, a very fine line drawn between gamers who can objectify their real life over gaming (i.e., "self-regulation") and those who can't: the latter group shows a significantly greater chance for video game addiction than the former group. While a multitude of personal problems that cause video game addiction do exist, gamers' in-game outlets are much more streamlined, which makes differentiating the root cause for a specific addiction rather difficult. Monthly fees do not factor into motivation for addictive gameplay, but they could be an incentive to continue "engaged" gameplay that may lead to an addiction.

@ thread: "We've had this date with each other from the beginning." Stanley, A Streetcar Named Desire

Got any academic research you'd care to cite? This intrigues me (both their conclusions and how they arrived at them).

papernaut said:

Its not JUST for the sake of PvP. I get tired of the same old 'do quest' and then 'do instance'. The contested public quests and the ability to instantly join some PvP scenario (and get normal XP and gear rewards for it) or walk to a contested pvp area makes me feel less bored with the two things (PvE and PvP). You don't HAVE to do PvP, its just a viable, readily availible option (unless you're on a PvP server and then most of those rules are thrown out the door).

I mean for chrissakes I'm on a PvP server in WoW, and I've found out, that even on this thing, I don't get to do open world PvP until I'm like... mid 20s. And then when I DO kill something, I get NOTHING... NOT A SINGLE THING for it (when it boils down to the root of it, yes.. NOTHING).

Also WARs push to do well in the game to give your side of the conflict more points to push the war to your opponent's battle front and seige their capitol city is just SO much more motivation than anything most other MMOs have.

vermillian said:

Exactly.

The implementation of PvP in WAR is very good for MMOs. It's the actual PvPing that's just more of the same (to me) that bothers me.

vermillian said:

ctr2yellowbird said:

Tallgeese said:

My main issue with WAR, WoW and several others like it is the monthly fee, I resent paying for a game I have already paid for. I know I'm in the miniority here, 10 million WoW players who abuse their parents credit card can't be wrong. It just doesn't sit right with me, and I feel it also is one of the contributing reasons for people playing those games to excessive levels.

I chose to research video game addiction as my writing topic for an academic writing course, and, actually, monthly fees have very little to do with why some gamers play excessively. The most supported reason for excessive video gaming by advocates of video game addiction is that addictive gaming is often a manifestation of "underlying problems." Also, a very fine line drawn between gamers who can objectify their real life over gaming (i.e., "self-regulation") and those who can't: the latter group shows a significantly greater chance for video game addiction than the former group. While a multitude of personal problems that cause video game addiction do exist, gamers' in-game outlets are much more streamlined, which makes differentiating the root cause for a specific addiction rather difficult. Monthly fees do not factor into motivation for addictive gameplay, but they could be an incentive to continue "engaged" gameplay that may lead to an addiction.

@ thread: "We've had this date with each other from the beginning." Stanley, A Streetcar Named Desire

Got any academic research you'd care to cite? This intrigues me (both their conclusions and how they arrived at them).

Oh geeze... What's the proper way to cite sources in a forum post? I'm not quite sure which research you're interested in, or what exactly you want more info on. Of the fifteen or so sources that I consulted for that writing course, subscriptions as a source of motivation for addictive gameplay were never discussed. I'm relatively certain that subscriptions were never even mentioned outside of canceling them as a step to quit gaming. The percentage of addicted gamers is really sketchy, but I've gathered that roughly 10% of (American/MMO) gamers qualify as addicted under proper scrutiny. The other 90% are classified as engaged . Research indicates that engaged gamers play with a more objectified outlook. Therefore, engaged gamers can conceivably choose to continue playing a game simply to validate any money that they spent on that game, while addicted gamers aren't afforded a fair decision. If I haven't made myself clear, the focus of my research was addictive gameplay. Nevertheless, other conclusions can be drawn from my sources. You'd probably be better served if you read my essay, but I don't know a thing about claiming my own academic credit. Until I see something that explains how any such process works, I'm disinclined to post it publicly.

In APA format as was required of me, I narrowed down my sources to these six (also required):

Clark, N. (2006, August). Addiction and the structural characteristics of massively multiplayer online games. Gamasutra . Retrieved from http://www.gamasutra.com/features/ 20060822/vgsca_gama.pdf

James W. (2008, May 20). On-line gamers anonymous . Retrieved from http://www.olganon.org/

Reddy, S. (2008, January). A disorder by any other name: excessive computer game playing. Virtual Mentor, 10 . Retrieved from http://virtualmentor.ama-assn.org/2008/01/pdf/jdsc1-0801.pdf

Seay, A. F., & Kraut, R. E. (2007). Project massive: Self-regulation and problematic use of online gaming. [Electronic Version] CHI 2007: Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 829-838. New York: ACM Press. Retrieved from http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kraut/RKraut.site.files/articles/seay07-GamePlay%26PsychologicalWellbeing.pdf

Yee, N. (2002, October). Ariadne – understanding MMORPG addiction . Retrieved from http://www.nickyee.com/hub/addiction/addiction.pdf

Yee, N. (2006, November 30). The ‘trouble’ with addiction. The Daedalus Project: The Psychology of MMORPGs, 4(5) . Retrieved from http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/print/001543.php

I found Clark's overview of addiction literature very informative. I cited him to illustrate the differences between engagement and addiction.

James W. was the web designer for the most recent version of On-Line Gamers Anonymous' site. I only cited the cite to show that games other than MMOs can be addictive, despite the focus on MMO addiction.

Reddy shows some arguments for and against video game addiction, but I found the actual content lacking in useful info.

Seay and Kraut's work details "Project Massive." They concluded that the presence "self-regulation" in a gamer is inversely proportional to that gamer's likelihood for addiction. The entire report is quite reliable.

Yee's 2002 paper provided groundbreaking insight on the gamers' attractions and addictions toward video games; however, that paper is outdated because he is constantly refining his ideas. His Daedalus Project is the most expansive source of trusted MMO info, and he is reknowned as a prominent figure in the field that studies MMOs.

Yee's 2006 paper covers many misconceptions on video game addiction. It's extremely important for me to point out that a truly universal explanation of addiction does not exist; there's always another valid interpretation of addiction to confuse people...

I am also playing WAR.

I really like your description of it Verm, you got it quite well.

The only things i find lacking in WAR are social interactions. Not enough emotes, no "body language" while talking as in WoW, no one talking in public channels ( which is good considering the amount of trolling in WoW gen chat, but not enough is like too much... ) no one ever talk to another... i've been in groups for hours, where nobody ever talked. When even the world of the game reinforce the "you are alone" concept, you seriously start to feel lonely when no one ever talk to ye.

Don't misundertand me, i find WAR fabulous. I was not a PvP fan, but i discovered RvR ( > PvP ) in Dark Age of Camelot ( Mythics last MMO which i played for about 4-5 years ) and got a blast. Now i find MMOs without PvP really boring, WoW being part of them. Yes, play WAR and you'll agree that there's no PvP in WoW...

As an old D&D roleplayer, i only find it sad that WAR really miss the RP experience when WoW got it about right. But heh, hard to compare a 2-3 years, million subscribers budget game with a 3-4 month, one million budget subscribers game.

I already tried to talk Hatman and some of our UFS Meta WoW player into switching into WAR, but they answered me the MTG answer : "Too much time and money in this already....". Talk about originallity...

I play Destruction on "Ostermark" and Order on "Phoenix Throne" if any are interested. My characters are all about lvl 20.

Cass said:

already tried to talk Hatman and some of our UFS Meta WoW player into switching into WAR, but they answered me the MTG answer : "Too much time and money in this already....". Talk about originallity...

I distinctly remember saying my computer sucked too much for WAR. DAVE was the one who said that line and last I checked he doesn't speak for all of us. I'd definitely try it out though.

Stumbled onto some old screenshots about the BEST part of City of Heroes/Villains : The players themselves, albeit unintentionally most times :

She never takes any request. Never. Unless it is very important.

You're thinking this is a hot chick, right? The name says she's packing something extra.

I got bit by an in-game class to get my powers.

The third one you have to have played the game minimally to get, but the others, well, not really.

I play WAR on some server as a Black Orc, Magus, and Shaman. My main reason for joining WAR, because PvP in WoW was too easy and lame. Awhile back (like two years or so) ago, when WoW implemented the Arena system I though maybe, just maybe I could stick with this game. I did the 2v2, 3v3, 5v5 deal, and realized how totally lame it all was. First off, my 2v2 team was ranked 5th on the battlegroup, and I wasn't even taking the game that seriously. Maybe it's because when they first came out with the battlegrounds, I basically leveled my character through them so I didn't totally suck at PvP, but seriously, when you get to the higher levels it should be difficult in some fashion. Also, when Season 3 hit, I had enough points stored over from the last season that I bought half of the crap I needed from Season 3 before I even started playing...

WAR does PvP solid, it's very Rock, Paper, Scissor'ish (minus Tanks, Tanks are brutal in this game). However, WAR will probably suffer with the same problems that plagued DAoC, which is Mythic totally not getting the 'balanced class' issue. I'm hoping that EA sticks it to them to keep everything good, but Mythic does class balance terribly, and at the end of the patch, one class gets nerfed to oblivion and another gets buffed to the point where it shoots golden sparkles out it's butt that cause enemy players to die instantly. So far I've been content, with only small balance issues (if you play the game, Sorcerer vs. Bright Wizard, the tank classes) and it's still solid. Not to mention, Keep Raids and punting people off cliffs is probably the best thing ever.

other things to look at in the future? if you liked the concept City of Heroes/Villains, but didn't like the game, look for Champions and DC Online. I'm a unfortunate hardcore MMO player, so I'm probably going to be playing these too (WAR is something like my 21st or 22nd MMO)

quarzark said:

Yah, if they don't screw this up too bad, I'mma try Champions Online once it comes out or a trial comes out.

Yay! I got MapleStory running again!

Sadly I'm stuck with the European version.

If anyone plays (this is out on a limb here), I'm on my usual name of SonGopaul. Just turned Lv16 and resting in Henesys before this post.