@ AgentZ: Of course there is satisfaction in getting better at things, I will not deny this. It is important to me, as well. However, it must not be the only thing that can be done, because otherwise we might just play this game:
http://www.progressquest.com
In fact, the game \"ShadowFlare\" was like this, and it was just lame IMO, just like Diablo. The levelling aspect of the game IMO needs to be countered by other factors like RP and story, exploration and whatnot. I\'ll happily explore a vast area without killing a MOB every 2 metres. There need to be other things to do as well, like crafting and such, and plenty of these. I enjoy fighting, but I see it as a secondary activity. It surely is fun to occasionally toast some MOBs, but there are just as many times I only want to see some nice graphics, or to explore some well designed area, or to do totally useless things in-game.
@ Adeli:
There sure is a difference, but I don\'t think it is very important for the point. A perfectly realistic world would be an exact copy of the real world, and thus wouldn\'t be worth entering, because it\'d simply be too tedious to put up with it, even if you\'d be able to select where and as what you start out, which would, however, be unrealistic.
Therefore, I don\'t want a perfectly realistic world, either, because there are
many unrealistic things that in essence make the game a game, like getting rid of tedious things and of repetitive, unwanted requirements and constraints. Also, the presence of GMs is a totally unrealistic thing, but it is highly important regardless of the world\'s realism.
@ Adeli / Agentz:
I seem to continously fail to express what I mean.
While I don\'t particularly like the idea of harvesting to then sell the stuff, I totally acknowledge it\'s realism and also it\'s legitimacy. If anything, miners, farmers and hunters are doing it as their profession, and it\'s perfectly valid.
That is not the problem, because these harvest for ingame purposes, and they
still RP. They RP someone who has the strong desire to get the money for the gear they want, ingame. Fine, I\'ll occasionally do the same, as long as it doesn\'t get too repetitive to be reasonable.
The fundamental difference between these and the harvesters that I actually classify as such is that the latter don\'t play the game because it\'s a game, they don\'t enjoy it and they don\'t care. Most likely, they have never said one single word in-character. They don\'t care about anything, and they don\'t harvest for ingame purposes. They don\'t want to buy new gear for their chars, unless it improves their harvesting ability. They live off the community, without giving anything back, thus they\'re parasites.
While the \"I need this to buy / make my new gear\" ppl. actually enjoy the game, will engage with others in some RP way, and also will participate in the game economy (whether by selling, giving away or whatever the \"harvested\" stuff), thus enriching the game world, the
actual harvesters don\'t do anything like this. The only times at which they might speak (if they actually speak the laguage of the game community) is to tell the buyer the instructions on how to get the stuff, or to tell gamers off \"their\" harvesting grounds. They don\'t give back
anything to the community. They do
nothing but harvesting, because it\'s thir RL job to harvest the game.
To make it clear: harvesting is OK with me when it
- is done to get ingame results, like sales or items. This would be, at worst, powelevelling
- is done in socially acceptable ways, so that other ppl.\'s gaming experience will not be less enjoyable due to the harvesting activity. (like if someone comes along and asks you to let them kill that MOB for their quest, and you cooperate)
I also absolutely acknowledge that \"having fun\" is not an ingame thing (after all, the character getting beaten up will hardly classify this as \"fun\"), but it is something tha\'s being shared by various means (mostly by having fun with others, which will therefore also have fun).
Of course, some ppl. get fun out of griefing and other malicious activities, but these are universally seen as being \"bad\". Therefore, there is a distinct difference between \"ingame harvesting\" and
actual harvesting.
