With all the diehard enthusiasm surrounding the MAG right now, I decided to go check when WW II Online was published. You know, it's a MMOFPS for PC (and apparently Mac also). And what do you know, according to wikipedia, World War II Online was first released June 6th, 2001. And it is a really massively multiplayer, which I don't personally think 256 players qualifies for. Anyhow, I guess most people consider MAG to be a hardcore game, right? From an old-time PC player's perspective, pretty much all console games are casual, even consoles themselves are often considered more casual than a PC. With that in mind, I found the following quote from Wikipedia quite amusing:
"Some players find the game to be slower paced than they desire. In early versions of the game, it was common for players to spend 30 minutes or more before finding enemy players to engage. They would often have to wait for a truck, and then drive for miles to the action. This level of realism appealed to the gamer craving authenticity, but left the casual gamer feeling disenchanted. Recent efforts by developers have focused on bringing more immediate action to the field, through the introduction of a feature called "mobile spawn points"."
Considering that WWIIOL is still played today, it is possible to make a MMOFPS that works. However, I suspect it requires a lot of true hardcore players who are willing to learn the tactics and strategies and who are also willing to stick to them as commanded. What I fear is that MAG will be "casualized" so that basically anybody can get online and start playing and not be overwhelmed by the difficulty of the game, and hence a lot of the players will be too casual for the game concept. With WWIIOL, the learning curve is apparently so steep (I haven't played the game, but I have friends who play it seriously.) that it actively discourages all but the "real hardcore" players.
What are you thoughts on the matter? How could the devs avoid the problems of immature jackasses ruining the game for everybody else? And do you think MAG will be more of a hardcore or casual game?
