Azaroth

Have you ever truly come across an “endgame” in an MMO that tickled your fancy?

Has anyone ever done it correctly?
When the “game” ends and the “endgame” begins, often the most fundamental aspects of gameplay are heavily altered. When they’re not, it’s probably a safe bet that there just isn’t an endgame. Which has happened before, and leaving people up to their own devices once they have an all-powerful character, four houses and three pet dragons can be entertaining for a while. Especially when you’re allowed to kill other players. But it doesn’t take long for the game world to degenerate in those circumstances to something that resembles a bitch match of Quake.

So far, I’ve seen two modes of endgame in MMOs: None and Bad.

I think at one point I got relentlessly flamed on a forum for extolling the virtues of getting a fucking life and never touching WoW’s endgame ever again. Based purely on my own experiences. People got mad at me for talking shit about WoW on a WoW forum, basically.

The thing is that I don’t really have a problem with the game 1-70. I had a lot of fun wasting hours and hours leveling up with my girlfriend. I actually have a few level 70s. There’s plenty of interesting content, it’s a smooth game. It’s not exactly my exact cup of tea, but it’s pretty good at being what it is.

However, WoW’s endgame might as well literally plant you on an actual treadmill and have you run all day while men behind glass laugh and a midget picks dollars from your wallet. Except you won’t get in shape playing WoW, and you’d actually remember where the hell all the time went two or three years down the line when you think back to what you did that hazy year or two when you played the game. I was running on that fucking treadmill while those assholes laughed at me. That god damn midget, too. Fucker.

Do you honestly remember where the time went when you played WoW? Or EQ2? Or whatever? Sure, other things went on in life. And maybe you more or less remember leveling up that first character. But all that time “playing” the “endgame”… where the hell did that go?

Was raiding MC five hours a night really necessary? And if you’re a PvPer, well. Anyway.

The point isn’t a rant on wasted time. The point is that, even if the game is expertly crafted up until the level cap, the endgame is purposely tacked on to keep you fooled into playing as long as possible. This is accomplished through various carrot on a stick tactics combined with, frankly, exploiting an addiction. And don’t get me wrong - setting achievement levels isn’t necessarily exploitation. When I tried to grind out a GM blacksmith over an entire summer ten years ago, I was dealing with a difficult delay in gratification designed to create a scarcity in GM blacksmiths in the game world. There should probably have been SOME content involved in doing that, but it was a valid and necessary.

However, UO had no real endgame. What I did when I was “done” my character was up to me, really. That’s good and that’s bad, but it’s certainly not exploiting potential addiction in the same way as tacking on a Blacksmith MORTAL COMBAT at skill 100.0 where I had to either participate in Extreme Breastplate Crafting constantly or fall further and further behind the curve daily without much hope of being able to catch up.

That’s where these current endgames are wrong. Not just because they’re bad, but because they’re designed from the ground up to simply keep a subscription running as long as possible. Is it so much different than making a chicken nugget, and then dumping in MSG to promote addiction after the fact? The chicken nugget is already made, people will either enjoy it or not on their own terms.. and they’ll purchase again or not on their own terms. However, taking that extra step to artificially addict a customer with additives just isn’t respectable. It should probably even be criminal.

Although the PvP honour grind in World of Warcraft isn’t exactly a chemical additive. And I’m not saying any game developers should be locked up. So don’t get too red in the face, WoW junkies. I’m simply making a point.

So, are the only two options bad and none? That can’t be the case.
I’d throw out my own ideas, but that’d be too easy since I clearly have all the answers. Instead, I’m interested in hearing what you guys think. Or just tell me to L2P.