On this day of a rather significant World of Warcraft patch, we might do well to remember that this endless cycle of buffing and nerfing and nerfing (oops, too far that time), and buffing and quitting and j/k about quitting has been going on as long as gaming itself.
Ten years ago, Tenarius, former Mud Druid, wrote a guide for nerfing games: The Mud Whimping Guidebook Page, Ruin your game by nerfing or wimping players.
Realize: I’m not saying Warcraft is ruined, not by a long shot — I’m saying human nature hasn’t changed in ten years.
Since this is an ancient document, I’ll translate some of the terms:
Mud – that’s a game, Multi User Dungeon. Our forefathers played these around a kitchen table before there was Ultima Online and EverQuest.
Immortals, Gods, Dungeon Masters and their ilk – those are the GMs! We still call them GMs! Weird.
Mobs – the monsters. We still call them mobs! Weird.
Trolls – players, (forum posters), who stir up trouble. We still have those too!!
Wiping – we think of wiping as a complete party or raid death. Back in the kitchen-table days, wiping was like quitting — a complete file wipe of player data.
Wimping (alternate spelling, Whimping) – NERFING. Looks like they sometimes called it nerfing also.
And reading further, I can see that we have had fanbois, QQers and The Poor with us always.
His conclusion about game balancing and the inevitable fallout is as valid today as it was back then in olden days:
Lastly, is it worth the cost? You are about to lose players and maybe an immortal or two. Is this what you want to occur? Are players worth anything to you? Will you GET more players in return for the ones you lost when the game playing public hears of what a great job of wimping you have done? If so have at it, but think… few people come to muds because they have heard of how great the balance is, most people come because they hear the gods make it a FUN place to play and that the people are friendly. Nerfing begets the antithesis of a friendly environment.
I read all this as: Nerfing is the slippery slope of last resort.
They knew that before we knew that.
Credits: I found Tenarius’ essay via this thread on the WoW Forums, thanks to Buzzkill, level 8 posting alt of the Windrunner realm.
Just a nitpick – “Our forefathers played these around a kitchen table” – MUDs were (and are) online. And since I doubt our forefathers had laptops, they were playing them in the dark dank holes of basement computer rooms, much like our current generation. Just without the pretty graphics.
My fiance used to play MUDs, and we’ve played various MMORPGs and online RPGs for years. The endless cycles of nerfs are always the same, but usually people just take it all in stride because they still enjoy the game. It’s only when the fun itself stops that people get really upset about the nerfs, and consider quitting / actually quit. FOTM was invented due to the endless cycles of nerfs, you know.
For me, the fun factor was not there anymore as I played my 70 priest, and then the nerfs come. They rapidly diminished all other reasons I had for wanting to advance my character. There are outside motivators like the people you play with, but when there are several classes that outperform you, and your friends are happily playing those classes, it’s easy to feel like giving a new game a try.
Ultimately, I can’t help but think back to the other games I’d poured a lot of time and passion into, and wonder where that passion went. All games nerf, it’s just inevitable. But to do so in the name of “balance” is stupid, since you can upgrade those that are lesser in order to make the game more fun for everyone.
I think the term “nerfing” came from Ultima Online; when the first major rebalancing greatly reduced the damage that melee weapons did people started saying it felt like their swords were made out of Nerf(tm) foam because of how lightly they hit. And since nerfing has a better ring to it than wimping it stuck.
Or it may have pre-dated UO and just caught on there with the analogy intact. I dunno.
Blizzard’s pretty good at balance, but they made some real screwups this time out. Most of this is due to itemization issues it looks like, what with the new standards of armor and stamina not playing well with the established standards for healing and druid bonuses (note to designers: multplicative bonuses are a BITCH to balance). Hopefully the nerfs will pave the way for making the higher-end items not suck without being too overwhelming.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerf_%28computer_gaming%29
nerf is a change to the rules of a computer game that weakens a certain object or ability.
The term comes from the childsafe Nerf toys of soft foam and plastic, which are often made in the shape of guns, bats, or other weapons. The term originated in the MMORPG Ultima Online, where for a long period of time the sword skill was incredibly powerful. The designers eventually lowered its effectiveness, causing massive player outcry; they claimed that it seemed as though they were hitting with “Nerf Bats”.
I hate hate HATE that mudwimping guide and the people who quote it.
Because it assumes a static population of players and then goes from there to say “there are some people who will hate any change, and some people who will always hate you, therefore NEVER CHANGE ANYTHING or your game spirals into destruction”.
And this is supposed to be some deep and profound insight?
–GF
The reason why people like to reminisce about the “good old days” of MUDs, IRC networks, old school DOS games, text-only BBS’s, etc. is because those were times when the online genre was getting its beginnings, the community was much smaller, and just about everyone was a hardcore nerd and true geek.
Also, people like to think that despite the tendency for history to repeat itself, the past is still more glorious and poignant than the present.
I remember posting my early thoughts about my priest pretty much being DOA before TBC ever came out. But I’d already gotten used to the pain so the new content would suffice to re-create the fun factor. Unfortunately, the continued nerfing just shakes loose too much of the pleasure.
Like another commenter said – balance is one thing, but killing the fun factor is another. I visited almost all of the class forums last night. I was really shocked to see so many of the classes up in arms. I expected the Priests, Druids and Paladins to be upset. I dunno what Rogues are whinning for and seeing Mages crying foul was comical. The only forum that didnt disappoint were the Warlocks who were amusing themselves with silly lets play on the forum posts. That’s how you know which classes are probably over powered. They’re making nice on the forums cuz well, life’s good and nothing to fret over. LOL Why o why, did I give my kid my warlock??
There fixed that for you.
They stopped being good at balancing when they let BG/Arena PvP start dictating changes made to the PvE side of things.
Same problem every MMO has when they don’t have some kind of separate system from PvE stats and PvP /shrug
I always thought Guild Wars nicely balanced PvE and PvP. I had a blast on all of my characters; in the end there just wasn’t enough PvE content to keep me around long-term.