MMO players are like children– you can give, and give, and they’ll just get more spoiled.  Witness a WoW designer reminding a bad player that its skill-based system isn’t intended to give the top loot to… bad players.

No, you have to have a firm hand, and you have to set the tone immediately.  That’s why Champions Online developers Cryptic dropped a massive day one nerf as a morning welcome to its audience of ill-raised babies, and then sat silent for a couple days while its head-start players asked if they’d be able to re-spec their now-crappy characters into something a bit less “loser”.

In child-rearing, we call this the “cry it out” method, and it’s the only way you get any sleep.  Put the child down to sleep, let it scream its head off for a few days or so, and eventually it learns to shut up and pay its monthly fee go to sleep.  “But Matt– they’re not trapped!  They can get up out of their crib, and go to another coddling, namby-pamby, buy your way to maxlevel, pamper you until you’re Gossip Girl spoiled day care MMO!”  Well, duh– that’s why you wait to drop the nerf until a couple hours after you’ve stopped selling lifetime subscriptions!

And lest you think this is just an act– if you think this game is going to be balanced for casuals, another walk in the park– Roper has a message for you.  Suck it up or stop sucking:

CraigHort asks: …After the launch day patch I feel weedy, like Superman near Kryptonite, and I struggle to best three baddies of similar power. Is that right? Shouldn’t I feel more super?

Bill Roper: …With my Might-based character, I regularly take on four-to-six henchmen and feel awesome doing it.

That’s right, pencil-neck.  Bill Roper just told you to learn to play. Now stop crying and change your own damned diaper.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 4th, 2009 at 7:06 am and is filed under Game Discussion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.