Regular RPGs just don't do it anymore (or am I a cheater?)

Okay, so I know it's been a little bit since my last post, but alas, I'm still here. I've been a bit down lately to post anything, as my Learn 2 Play WoW (weplaywow.com) experiment didn't turn out as well as I thought (apparently there are not many people out there that want to play World of Warcraft and just don't know how as I had originally thought, although I do have a good amount of fans on our Facebook page). The website is still up and we're still accepting purchases and giving classes if needed; however, no one has bit yet (Yes, I'm probably the only business owner to ever admit this, but I think that's one of my key traits: I'm able to admit when I don't succeed at something and either try harder and figure out what I did wrong or why something doesn't work).

Ah, enough of the self-pity and onto the real meat of this post. I realized something the other day as I was demoing D & D: Dragondale on the XBOX 360. I didn't get very far before I became bored. The same thing happened with Demon Souls on the PS3 (an interesting concept, but I was only able to play until I died, and then it became very irritating trying to resurrect...). I thought back to The Elder Scrolls series that I have played since Morrowind. I only made it through the stories of those games because I (scoff) cheated. Yes, I admit when things got frustrating (which on Oblivion set to Easy mode wasn't often, but hey it did happen), I either looked up the cheat codes for God mode or looked up the walkthrough to find the answer. Then I thought about something. I never cheated in City of Heroes to get to 50 (you couldn't or if you did, you got banned, etc, etc, etc). But it did get frustrating at times, but my friends in-game helped me, as well as my wife because she played as well. Then I thought to how I had become bored with City of Heroes and moved onto World of Warcraft, and sigh, I cheated. I use Dugi's guides... and before those I used Jame's tour guides... (note, not necessarily cheating, but walkthroughs essentially telling you how to do everything). Am I addicted to getting to the end as fast as I can or am I even cheating at WoW, or did CoH just become boring at the end when all of my friends, and my wife, had moved on pretty much. I admit, we have regular groups that run Dungeons in World of Warcraft and that is one of the reasons I stay. I'm now playing Rift occasionally, especially with their version of a dungeon finder implemented (okay, I love my Bard in these dungeon groups! Don't have to dedicate healing, and I play music to buff and deal damage!). Okay, geekfest over here. Let me know in the comment section here. Am I addicted to cheating or have the single-player RPGs just lost their flair compared to MMORPGs, or am I even cheating at all on World of Warcraft?

City of Heroes Going F2P?

So, my good friend, Steady over at Steady's Gaming Blog, let me know that City of Heroes was going Free to Play in the upcoming issue 21. City of Heroes was the first MMORPG that I had invested enough time to get a character to the level cap. Don't get my wrong, my first MMORPG that I played was Everquest Online Adventures on the Playstation 2, but I never got to the level cap there or any subsequent MMO (Star Wars Galaxies, Everquest, Everquest II, etc). until I found CoH. At around level 5, my wife and I found a home with the Moonbase Gamma supergroup, which eventually evolved into the Combat Engineers gaming community, that I'm still a part of today (yes, I know, those people are crazy for keeping me this long!).

Anyways, I later started playing World of Warcraft, got addicted, and moved more away from CoH, and devoted most of my game time towards World of Warcraft (yeah, like that's worked. I still try every game known to man, and I still keep coming back to WoW). So, to make a long story short, I may come back to City of Heroes, depending on what content is being offered for free. I don't think I'm willing to pay another monthly subscription (with Rift, WoW, and now Gods and Heroes [see next blog post, coming soon]), but if I can still play my level 50 and access new stuff, finish off certain badges, etc, and maybe level a new character as well, I may be coming back.

Now, as with Steady, I share his concerns. Will this new F2P model ruin the game with an influx of new people farming characters to the level cap, without learning to play their character, and then attempting to play the end-game and ruin PUG groups in the game completely (they're already dreadful enough as it is)? The game already has a problem with paying subscribers farming their toons to level cap and then attempting the end-game content without knowing how to play their character (hence the current state of most PUG groups). Don't twist my words here, I'm not against farming levels completely, and I've taken part in and benefitted from the practice as well. However, a person that farms a character from level 1 to the level cap without learning how to play said character should not then attempt to jump into any end game content. Learn to play the character. Run some of those missions you missed along the way, learn about the powers that you have and when you should use each one. Find out with enhancements work best with your character. Find some friends and run some task forces and once you feel like that character is your in-game persona that you know like the back of your hand, then maybe dabble in the end-game content. Hopefully, these new F2P players will grasp that concept, but if it's anything like some of the current subscribers, it's kind of doubtful. Granted, I can still play with my current Supergroup, but most of the people that used to play it actively, have moved on to another game as well (usually WoW).

-Ashton