A Valid Point raised…

Quote from Silky Venom Forum  posted by Kurron Nye - Stop whining about making the game ‘easier’ Why?Because you folks who do not like the game changes to make access easier have a choice..they can choose to NOT use these features and functions.

You do not like the riftway? Then get on your mount and ride everywhere. You do not like the inter-continental teleporter? Then get a caravel and sail via the sea portals. You do not like corpse summon at altars? Then choose not to summon and instead do a CR every time.

You do not like Rest XP or the ease of XP gain? Then rack up twice as much XP debt so each level takes twice as long to complete.You want more challenging encounters? Then take on 4/5 dots with less than a full group, and do not use groups at all for 3-dots.

The point here is these ‘accesibility’ options are OPTIONAL, so if you are a person who truly believes in make the game harder, then yo would choose NOT to use them. However, I seriously doubt that any of the ‘anti-dumbing down’ crowd have boycotted these new features, and in fact use them in every play session. That to me says that part of the vocal minority has no legs to stand on..they are saying one thing while doing the opposite in practice.

They post about how ‘easy’ the game is while at the same time taking full advantage of the game’s ease. One could respect their arguments if they actually practiced what they preached and played this game in the manner they wish to force on everyone else. Thats also the rub…the methods of gameplay they want have NOT been taken away, but instead alternative forms of gameplay have ben offered. The ‘hardcore’ could choose to make their gameplay adhere to the standards they alledgedly support but do they? How can their arguments be taken seriously when they themselves will not play the game ‘hardcore’ when the ability is sitting right in front of them? (and there are gigabytes worth of posts over the years in the hardcore vs. casual debate which show what ‘hardcore’ MMO gamers seem to want)

To me, it proves that the core argument in favor of ‘hardcore’ gameplay is NOT to make their own gameplay harder, but to make everyone’s else’s game harder so they can appear superior in comparison.

Yea..wonderful eh? Rather than raise themselves up, they choose to lower everyone else. Sounds more like Communism than anything.

SO really hardcore folks, what is limiting you from playing ‘hardcore’ like yo claim to want on VG? I do not see how SOE has prevented you from playing the game the wa you want. You seem to simply advocate forcing everyone else to play the game the way *you* want.

P.S. Please bear in mind I am not against making games more challenging, the point is if challenging gameplay is so important to you, why do you not make the game more challenging for yourselves, rather than browbeat SOE and people who play differently than you? Why is it the game cannot be ‘fun’ for YOU unless everyone else if forced to conform to your worldview?

Do you REALLY want to group with people who are only with you because they HAVE to be there? Seems to me you would be trying to dungeon dive with people who would leave you to rot the first chance they got.

     I can’t say enough how glad I was to see this post on the Silky Venom forum.  Silky Venom has long been the top place for many people to post thier discontent about Vanguard.  Occasionally, posts or replies like these are made to add some perspective and balance to the norm.  I can certainly understand that some are genuinely discouraged and have had negative experiences in the game.   However, many of the posts at Silky Venom are blatant attacks on the game and employees at SOE ( both past and present ).  What I see on the forums is a lot of pissing and moaning from disgruntled individuals… The question most obvious to me would be, “So where are all the positive posts?”.   For me, rather than wasting my time posting on a forum in which I would most certainly dog piled upon, I choose to enjoy the game.  My positive outlet is through blogging.  Hopefully, the developement staff at SOE takes the forum posts with a grain of salt and realizes that these posts come from the “Vocal Minority”.