MMO Hobos

Here's a guy that has hit upon a more useful way to differentiate the "casual" and "hardcore" divide in MMOs.

He calls them Transients vs Extended.

I have been exploring these two aspects in a roundabout fashion while in a distinctly transient phase.

Mostly, my exploration of the Extended gameplay style consists of reading ancient Rock, Paper, Shotgun articles about long term strategy games, often involving multiple players that know each other. Phil Cameron calls the resulting experience "The Long-Form Emotion."

I've enjoyed their sagas about Neptune's Pride, Solium Infernum and yes, even an old Blood Bowl RPS League.

I read about it, mostly because I lack the patience, the time, and the friend relationships to pull it off.

(Lacking the time is a lie. I spend lots of hours gaming. Rather, I lack the impetus to follow a set schedule as an unrepentant Transient.)

It holds a sort of elusive fascination for me, the concept of this emotion. On the one hand, I can't imagine why anyone would want to put themselves through all the pain and distraction of something so deeply consuming that it threatens real life relationships if a chance backstabbing happens in-game.

(Maybe because after 4 years of Extended lifestyle in RoD, I feel I've learned enough from that to know it's not healthy for me personally. I get too caught up, too addicted, and care too much to the point it's damn difficult to let go. So I have to not care so deeply in the first place.)

And competitive PvP urges don't drive me as strongly. Maybe it's a gender thing. Maybe it's just personality. So as interesting as Solium Infernum sounds, the allure of biffing multiple people up to be FFA king of the hill is not a strong motivator.
 
Yet there's something attractive about the long-form emotion when you combine it with socialness and immersion in an RP sense. I watch TotalBiscuit play Magicka with Simon and Lewis, and Terraria with Jesse. I watch the simulated half-pretend, half-reality of the Yogscast - Simon and Lewis pretending to be Honeydew the Dwarf and Xephos the Spaceman in the Shadow of Israphel.

The episodic nature of it calls to mind the old D&D adventures we used to have. I miss that sense of a "campaign." Hell, I've been watching Tripod vs the Dragon (Tripod's version of D&D: The Opera) religiously every night since the DVD arrived from Australia. The finale song "Bard" is a tribute to those simpler, geeky times. It makes me want to shut down in November and just Nanowrimo...

In actual gameplay, the closest I've gotten to Extended gaming is via Fallen London and the Night Circus, which I've just started up after somehow forgetting about it since May. It won't last, I know. My hobo nature will get the better of me a few months from now.

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And why shouldn't I?

Transients distinctly outnumber Extended players. Age and the other committments that stem from it makes Transients out of a good number of us.

Lots of games have learnt to cater to the Transient playstyle. From Flash games to bite-size gaming chunks. Dungeon finders, PUG makers, and FPS lobbies. Just queue up and badabing, you're in a game on demand. Quit when you're done with your play sessions. No hard feelings, no obligations.

Transient transitioning gives my mind novelty to chew on. Why sit through time-consuming grind if another game shows off the same mechanisms and mechanics in a far shorter time? Why play one game to death when there are so many new games to learn the rules to? I don't do Grandmastery, I'm a Jack of all Trades.

MMOs have started getting into the act with the advent of more and more subscription games transitioning to F2P. None of it is really free, of course. But subscription games demand Extended committment. F2P says to Transients "pay us while you're still interested in the game, we're ok if you play three months and then move on."

Individual Transients may not stay long. But the combined itinerant playerbase helps to shore up critical mass of a server population far better than an aging subscription-only server. (A Tale in the Desert visually proves this as the population dwindles from 1400 characters in the early days of a Telling, down to 800-900 in the draggy midgame. And I hear it's getting worse.)

The latest news is that DCUO is going F2P. And it pleases me because I will probably go and give it another shot. I loved the graphics, hated the console-focused UI and bugginess of the chat in beta. I wasn't prepared to spend box price for it, and then a monthly subscription. But if offered the client free, and asked to contribute $5-$15 for additional content after I've played enough to think the game is good - I think that's reasonable.

That's the price I'm used to spending on singleplayer games and F2P games on Steam. They last me a month or three. And it's cheap entertainment compared to movie nights.

Finally, the last update is that I just tried out a Transient game that's been out for a year, and it is indeed pretty good. Should have got off my arse a little sooner. Desktop Dungeons, it's called. The roguelike that's playable and winnable in 10-15 minutes. Probably the FIRST roguelike I've ever won. Rather than died horribly leaving beautiful graves.