Ads for games

[Azekah1]

I recently saw a banner ad for WoW and it said something like:<p>Join the adventure! Excitement ensues! The time of your life!!! ZOMG!?!</p><p>Ok, so I don't remember exactly what it said, but you get the point (I think)The funny thing is, I remember my 2 hour trial from WoW and it consisted of doing a few quests such as, kill 10 birds, kill rats until you get 10 updates, run over here, run over there...Not exactly the time of my life...</p><p>The funny thing is, almost every MMO banner add I've seen has a similar slogan.</p><p>If they put honest ads up, it would be more like, spend hours and hours and hours doing stuff so that you can have fun every once and while <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Ok, so maybe its not that bad, but it's certainly not, log in level 1 and start the craziness that some of these adds imply.</p><p>Sometimes I don't know why I still play these time sink games. There are so many others you can just sit down and have fun and not have to worry about spending hours to get to some of the fun stuff.Cmon, if anyone tries to tell me harvesting/doing that kill 10 [insert name here] quest for umptenth time or killing that PH for 3 hours to get a named to pop is a lot of fun then your a serious masacist.But there is a lot of great things that keep me playing as well. Being part of a community, testing the limits of my characters in combat, leveling, getting AA, finding cool loot, crafting stuff I can use/sell...and so on.What has really gottem me addicted lately is PvP. I just started and I'm playing this game more now than I ever have. But now the timesinks are even worse cuz you have to keep your character at peek performance at all times.</p><p>Anyway, I'm not even really sure what my point is, but I guess you need to be a special breed of person to play MMO's which is kind of why I think MMO's are changing so much. People are getting tired of the timesinks and just want to sit down and have fun. Some people have a set formula in thier head when they think of MMO's. If it doesn't take 2 years to get to max then its a wuss game, or death penaties or whatever. These people consider themselves "hardcore" becasue they are willing/able to spend hours upon hours doing menial tasks to advanced thier character.</p><p>Oh well, I guess we all have different views, but I hope they keep changing MMO's til eventually those banner ads are true.</p>

[GlitterPaws]

It's called Marketing. Marketing departments base ads on concept not actuality. Same in automobile, "Hi-tech" and pharmaceutical industries to name a few.Don't lose any sleep over the banner ads. ))

[LordPazuzu]

<p>Most games that throw you right in with instant action, instant fun, and continue to assail with with constant action, constant fun, constant ZOMG! type stuff are single player or multiplayer console games.  Think for a moment how long a person sticks with a console game; what is the average console game's lifespan in your system?</p><p>For the average gamer, not long.  There are, of course, exceptions, but generaly a game's lifespan isn't that long.  These games burn hot and burn fast for immediate gratification, then you're done.  They burn out quickly.  An MMO can't afford to burn out quickly since it is, in effect, a game without end.  The action and progress is intentionally kept at a slow burn, sometimes as low as a smolder, to prolong the lifespan of the game.  The object is to get players to pay every month for onths, even years.  To do that they need to keep the pace way down and the carrot's dangled ahead of you sufficiently attractive to motivate you to continue anyway.</p><p> Think of it this way:  Most games are a quickie or a fling....  MMOS are a relationship.</p>

[Articulas]

<cite>GlitterPaws wrote:</cite><blockquote>It's called Marketing. Marketing departments base ads on concept not actuality. Same in automobile, "Hi-tech" and pharmaceutical industries to name a few.Don't lose any sleep over the banner ads. ))</blockquote>you mean like how we were promised fellowships/families pre-launch. Also what happened to town Gossip and the name of an important guild being mentioned in NPC conversations after a major victory. amazing how some stuff never happens, but its used to hype up the public.