What Kind of Gamer Am I?

What kind of gamer am I? I’m reflecting on this question and my gaming habits more and more lately. I know the kind of gamer I used to be when I was younger. I used to play games all day every day at what many would consider hardcore or even unhealthy levels. I scaled it back significantly to what I would classify as a “serious” gamer while in college, and somewhat serious after that.  Now, things are starting to change.

I’m a picky gamer. I’m a particular gamer. I might even be a gaming snob. I know what I like, and I no longer need to play games just for the sake of having games to play. Games are my greatest passion, my beloved hobby and pastime. I would absolutely return to the days of playing games for hours on end and loving every second… if there were games to be played that I could enjoy for that long.

I can consume games like Assassin’s Creed. I can casually play games like Minecraft and Civilization on and off. If I could pick one style of game I love the most it would be MMORPGs. I love the immersion, the world, the social dynamics, and the progression over an extended period of time. I can play MMOs for years. What I can’t do anymore is justify being the tourist bouncing around MMO to MMO. That’s why I stopped playing WildStar and I’m skipping games like ArcheAge.

Settling for and buying every new MMO just isn’t in me anymore. Why bother? I can think of plenty of other activities I’d rather do than act desperate and throw myself at every promise. I’d rather be extremely picky and overly critical.

I think the best way I can describe myself as a gamer now is ‘unemployed’, ‘unoccupied’, or ‘idle’. The part of me capable of devouring games is hibernating and waiting for something to change. The only game I play now is the waiting game. Something will eventually come along. Something always does.

Has your way of gaming changed over the years? What kind of gamer are you?

  • I’ve definitely become more picky over the years, as you have. I started gaming as a kid and didn’t do too many other activities. Now I’m an adult with a career, engaged, with lots of other hobbies I’ve picked up along the way. Now I buy games sparingly and only if I think they’ll be great. A “decent” game used to be enough for me, but now it has to be exceptional if I’m going to invest the time in playing it.

    When a great game really gets its claws in me, I have to be very careful about my time management. I can easily get lost inside a great game for far too long. Especially longer games like 4x or MMOs. Starting up a new round of Civ 5 to play “for a bit” is a dangerous idea.

    I guess I am kind of a gaming snob, and a cynical one too. I hate a lot of the nonsense in the industry right now, especially around pre-orders, exclusive content, DLC shenanigans, paid early access, “games as service”, and monetization. I miss the days when it was as simple as just buying a game.

    I also find that I appreciate gameplay a lot more than story now. As a kid I used to love RPGs with lots of text, and absolutely adored the CG cutscenes. Now I hate cutscenes, I just want to be in control.

  • I’m kinda-sorta with you in a way, in that I find my drive to play *every* new MMO I ever hear about has subsided somewhat. I’m not really applying for betas much at the moment and I can’t say for sure yet whether I’ll dip into ArcheAge. If I do I certainly don’t expect to be sticking around.

    My reasons, though, are very different. I’m not getting the “grass is greener” thing much right now because I’m so satisfied with the MMOs already on offer. My lack of interest in new MMOs comes entirely from already having far too many lined up that I want to give more time to than I have available.

    I’m at least as happy with the state of MMOs in general and my own gaming in particular as I have ever been, and a lot more so than at some points in the past. Great time to be an MMO gamer.

  • Isn’t Archeage supposed to be very sandbox focused? Or has the design changed substantially?

  • “Unemployed gamer”

    haha exactly. I would love for a mmorpg to hook me again…ESO came close…instead I’m back in WoW again for the umpteenth time screwing around until WoD comes out.

    Sadly, I don’t see much in the way of new jobs coming out. I hope this isn’t nature’s way of telling me it’s time to grow up.

  • Unfortunately post-WoW era constant failures made all of us picky, i do not think that my way of thinking changed but rather that of developers.

    I kinda think that if something new came along that has the depth of games past i would be hooked all over again. Maybe i am wrong but as it now stands none of us can know if we changed or the industry changed.

    One thing certain though is that due to parenthood i cannot commit the same amount of time i once did.

  • Once again you’ve coined my own ‘state of play’ attitude. having played nearly every MMO release since UO, I’ve reached a point of fatigue with it all. No longer do I invest 40+ hours a week in this hobby as my own tolerance of and excitement for have been tempered through disappointing after disappointing release. Each has it’s own flash in the pan moment, but it takes me but a few hours to see the dead ends, the artificial time sinks, and the same material rehash that will drive me away. Your “3-monther” has become my 30 day’er.
    I am surprised you have no interest in Archeage. Frankly, I was surprised at my own interest after entering the last (and final) closed beta. After 4 days of play, I was excited for release and here’s why:

    Character design:
    Two examples of extremes: EveQuest and Rift –
    In EQ, you were pigeonholed. You could tank, DPS, Heal, or CC. The class you chose would perform that function better than any other, but nothing else. On the upside, it provided role clarity and by proxy, character identity. On the downside, without a required class available to group, or an excess of your own class available, progress was halted. How many nights have we all sat spamming /LFG or later queued in a Group Finder tool, before eventually logging for another activity? EQ did not allow for any sort of dynamic play shift.
    In Rift, the available skill trees, and abilities within, were excessive. This gave rise to character creations with all components of the play paradigm at their disposal. The result was a cacophony of overly homogenized players effectively performing the same, duplicate roles. True, stand out roles could be crafted for specific encounters but then quickly remapped to something more universally effective. As a result, role to character identity was lost and this was one of the greatest community forming social glues we saw in EQ!
    Where EQ’s role isolation was too restrictive, Rift’s was far too inclusive. World of Warcraft hit the sweet spot in the middle. Classes maintained the all precious role clarity, but allowed for sufficient variation to diversify to fill alternate roles, albeit to a lesser degree. A DPS role would be ideally filled by a class tailored to that end. In the event that was unavailable, another class could flex into DPS, with less success, and the show could carry on.
    This brings me to Archeage – No character can do it all. While a dearth of options exist for character builds, the free form we saw with Rift is no longer. By allowing a limited, but varied ability selection, role flexibility is retained while maintaining role identity as well. Keen, this is right in your wheelhouse!

    Theme park vs Sandbox:
    It’s not a free form sandbox, but it’s nearly so. i’m reminded more of Eve Online where player made stations (PMS) can be placed at any moon. However, it’s the devs that decide which of the star systems have moons, thereby controlling where PMS might be present or not! It’s the same within Archeage; specific locations are designated as housing eligible.

    Crafting:
    Crafted items are the best items, period and always.
    No Crafter is an island unto himself, and can become known for excellence.
    Crafting is a ‘social glue’ acting as a community bonding enterprise both in practice and in trade.
    – How often have read your rants about poor crafting game mechanics and their divorce from meaningful contribution to overall game play design? I’m with you in this; You’ll like what you see within Archaege.
    Harvesting is as important and crafting and must be done to the same level of excellence as crafting.

    So much more to say, but I tire of typing the the GF just got home and demands cocktails! So I’ll retire for now and hope to see you within Archeage. =)

  • If interested in sampling, Open Beta starts tomorrow:

    Open Beta: Thursday, September 4 @ 10:00 AM PDT through Monday, September 8.
    – Available to all new and veteran players with no invitation required.

    Head Start: Friday, September 12 at 10:00 AM PDT
    – All progress from Head Start will carry over to launch.

  • I think archeage is the game you are looking for keen. Player cities, non instanced housing, good pvp, strong char customization, ships, pirating, trade routes etc..

    I am super hyped for it

  • I’m a gamer with attention disorder. There are very few games I play for a long period and I rarely see the end of most single player games. I have this bad habit of jumping to the latest shiny. Always. I’m now working on that, trying to stay awat from Steam/Humble sales and focussing my attention to a limited amount of games. Good strategy/4X games will usually keep me interested over years as I’ll often go back to then after months of not touching game. For a long time, it was Civ5, now it’s Eu4.

    I’m slowly coming to peace with the fact that I’m no longer a MMO player. I just couldn’t get in any of them for the last year or so. I can’t blame the quality of the product or its type as I’m perfectly happy with a PvE quest-based game. I usually get the feeling that I can’t no longer commit enough time to be a top player which leads me to be unsatisfied with my gaming experience.

  • My passion for gaming had lead me down the opposite road to you Keen. Instead of becoming overly critical and picky, I’ve become *more* open and inclusive.

    I search across all genre’s, play many different kinds of game. Searching for the unique, doing my best to judge each game on it’s merits, unpicking what I like and dislike. Seeking to understand the things a game does well and why, along with it’s failings.

    My love of gaming has matured and grown beyond “What do I like. What does this game do for me!” into more of an appreciation of what relationship the game is trying to have with it’s player. What kind of dialog it’s having. What makes it tick.

    In other words, I’ve come to view games as Art. Interestingly, this leads me not to linger too long on any one title. If you’re chasing experiences, there’s only so much you can mine from a given game. Better to move onto the new and continue to grow your appreciation.

  • For the most part…I have switched to board games! 🙂 I can still get into some of the RPGs that come out…and I can check out MMOs but it has become stale…I think I am still looking forward to CU but I am skeptical…

  • I feel the same way. I think it has alot to do with already experiencing so many games in my life combined with knowing what I like and what I don’t like. When you put those filters together not much falls through them that I can’t say to myself, “X game did the same and did it better”. Over the years of playing you find that one game you like for just about every genre of game. In turn when a new “X” genre game comes out you automatically think back to the game in that genre that really did it for you and compare/contrast and 9 times out of 10 your original number 1 is still number 1.

    Unfortunately when you add that philosophy to the mmo genre you run into a wall due to lack of innovation over the past decade. Hell in the past two decades I can only name 2 mmo’s that really revolutionized the genre, Everquest, and WoW. Everything in between has just been lackluster iterations.

    I used to be like you in that I would try every new mmo under the sun. That stopped long ago when I realized nothing compares to EQ or WoW. The ideal mmo for me lies somewhere between the two and doesn’t exist and probably won’t ever exist unless I made it. One of these days I’m going to just say fuck it and try to make it happen.

  • Keen I really think you should try Archeage, the sandbox elements might be what you are looking for, I mean how many sandbox releases have there been over the years in the west ? Yolu burnt out on themeparks, try this last sandbox.

  • ArcheAge is free to play, so if nothing else I can try it without paying. I just wasn’t impressed by the quest grind. I liked a lot of the other things, but leveling was monotonous for me in the alpha.

  • Keen – interesting post. Thanks to you & your brother for the blog – I’ve been a longtime lurker.
    I started my MMO career when DAoC launched – played all realms, played top roaming 8 man pvp, extended & wiped zergs etc etc & yes, through rose-tinted glasses, it was the best collaborative mmo experience I’ve had to date. I did play wow, war, rift, ffxi, ffxiv, lotro, eso – you name it.

    Like you, I have less time, now in my 40’s – as a gamer, which dictates the time I can commit to a game, which means I fall behind in your traditional themepark – reach level cap then pvp-type game. I very much enjoyed setting up camp at a spawn of mobs, with at least a group of 5 or 6, heals, mez, tank dps…any pull that went wrong = wipe & XP loss. Do that all night for half a level. I don’t have time for that anymore.

    Currently, I’m playing Hex, an MMOTCG…backed it from Kickstarter. Highly encourage you to have a look, great streaming community so far hextcg.com. Also playing Path of Exile, fantastic game.
    Thanks for your writing, enjoy your thoughts
    Cheers

  • @Keen
    Now that I’ve played a couple of hours in ArcheAge open beta, I understand your feeling. I wasn’t really planning to put time in the game, but I’m weak and curious… So far, I don’t see anything special about this game. It might be super-duper-awesome later in whatever endgame they have, but I could see a lot of people not making it there out of boredom.