Final Fantasy VII still holds a special little place in my heart. It was probably the first of a long line of games to steal days, weeks and eventually months from my life. I can put in a copy, start from scratch and that “magic” is still as good as it was the first time.

My 12 year old cousin’s “review” of FF7 puts Julian’s point in perspective. Quote: “This is boring and the people look like crap. Is this a kids game?”

Perhaps I am too old, too bitter and too cynical for this generations games.

I don’t mean to single out anyone in particular, but Bhagpuss’ comments above talk about “the magic”, and while I don’t dispute for a second that some games are and have been more “magical” than others, and some games just “click” where others never do, I do kinda dispute how we’re defining the concept of “magic”.

I know how he meant it, and I’ve said so myself many times as well, but over the years I’ve come to find out that in most cases when we talk about “magic” it’s simply an euphemism for “That game had more or less as much crap to put up with as any other, but for any reasons I didn’t mind, or I had the free time back then not to mind”.

And I do mean well, this is not a slight about anyone at all, but it’s the reality of things. All of us have gotten older, we’ve got quite a few games under our belt and I’m not gonna say we’ve grown cynical (some of us have, though) but the fact is that we have much less free time and much less propensity to put up with game crap like this.

Numbers that don’t exist but I’d love to see: The age breakdown between players who complain about this gating versus those who don’t. I’d gamble the young ones are not complaining because they have the free time and a more “blank” mind slate to get to that magic. We on the other hand, really don’t. I’d imagine to the younger ones, or to those whom LOTRO might be their first MMO, this gating is par for the course, that’s how the game is and is yet another element to go through happily.

What we see as aggravation, with just a small adjustment of perspective, can be seen as challenge.

Take Star Wars, for instance. I love the original trilogy, but like many others I couldn’t grok the new prequels. Of course I look back at the original trilogy and I -know- the acting really isn’t all that, I see the shaky plot, the bad lines, all that, but I’m willing to forgive it because that’s where my “magic” is. Those movies were magical to me when I saw them. Now there are kids finding their magic in the prequels, and for the love of Cthulhu, I just can’t. They’re fine movies, but they don’t do anything for me. Not like the originals did.

Maybe “magic” is a generational thing, and different generations of gamers will find their own magic on different things. I can already see it with my 7-year old: He is starting to put up with some game crap that I wouldn’t. I’ve seen all the carrots at the end of all the sticks he’s being given, but he hasn’t yet. His treadmills and grinds are a challenge to him, and he happily goes through with them because it’s new and he’s finding his magic. Me? With one look I can gauge my cost/reward meter and find out what’s worth it or not, guided by my experience. I don’t put myself through a quarter of what he goes through, not because I don’t have his free time (which is true) but because I already know there’s no “magic” there and is not worth it to me.

“Magic” is something as subjective as art, and a constantly moving target.

I’m reminded of one of my earliest video game “rpg” experiences, being one of the Zelda titles on Ye Olde School GameBoy. The entire game was gating (trading items to one character for an item another character wanted, etc etc).

My current beef with LotRO comes down to the simple fact that gaining said items to reach the gated content just isn’t fun. When the game starts to feel like a chore I’m out. I love the game and the potential it has, I just don’t like the direction it’s gone in the last few updates.

Let X be the payout of the gated content (be it fun or loot) and Y be the amount of time, effort and possible frustration to achieve the keys to the gate. If X is the new raid and Y is getting yet more radiance gear, X is less than Y. Perhaps I’ve been in the game too long but I know I’m not the only one that feels this way.

Bottom line, it’s not the concept that has me worn out, it’s the content presented within the concept.

In a single player RPG we’d call it great storytelling. In an MMO we can’t stand it.

I wonder why that is? Is it because we want to get to “the good stuff”? In that case I think part of the problem is in MMOs lately, the destination is what’s important. While in all those stories the quests and hurdles were more important than the end. So maybe the way it’s done in an MMO they seem more like stumbling stones and annoyances?

Or is it because we can’t play with our friends due to the gating? I know phasing in WoW, which I thought was cool, now annoys me to no end, because I can’t help my friends who play more casually and slower than me, the very people who need help.

Gating via gear seems to solve some issues, like gear that only helps you to defeat the big baddie and is useless otherwise can help to keep players challenged and improving while not making them overpower everyone else in other parts of the game.

I’ve been reading The Diamond Age, and in this book a girl has an interactive book that is basically a sophisticated single player RPG, she had to spend over a decade on a quest, but before doing one part she had to do all these other prerequisites, without any site to look up how to solve the puzzles. God would any of us stand for that? I think playing videogames has given me ADD sometimes. :)

I don’t agree with such hard gating myself, but I’m not looking back and finding things rose colored either. It’s not that the LOTRO end game is the first thing that came with hard gating, particular requirements (soft or hard) and/or one definite path of progression and advancement.

I don’t think the genre as a whole lost or gained anything. Or rather, it did, but it balances out. We look back and see “the magic”, but we forget (myself included) all the strings it had attached.

Come on now, the “must have (x) to do/access (y)” has been in adventure games and later on in MMOs since forever. It’s particularly stinging now because of the amount of time it might take to “have (x)” but it’s not that we’re getting dicked out of nowhere here. It’s always been there.

Even when we had VM(1.0) more or less on farm status the most fun I ever had in there were impromptu fishing tournament while we waited for people to make pots and tokens.

If there’s any MMO that I want to see flourish and expand upon its world, it definitely has to be LotRO.