After running Power Core last night in DCUO, I’ve had a lot rattling around in my brain. When that kind of thing happens, I like to take up the virtual pen and write about it, letting you all know what’s up and what I’m thinking about. As such, this week’s What’s In a Game? segment will revolve around a topic that isn’t a new game. Today we’re talking about Exploits.
As annoying as it is, exploits will likely forever be a part of the MMO experience. For all of you Wizards or Pirates out there, I’m not talking furniture bugs (I’ve done a fair share of floating in my day!) but things more like the Wings exploit a couple years ago or, more recently, the mass acquisition of goods because ‘Press X to Collect’ wasn’t going away. My particular soapbox today will be a bit more focused on my experiences last night, but hopefully the message I’m peddling will still ring out loud and clear.
Exploiting in MMOs is bad. It felt wrong, and while I was frustrated when my internet went down (apparently Mediacom had scheduled maintenance I was unaware of…) I was a little thankful at the same time. It meant I wouldn’t have to be an accomplice to a clear abuse of power. You see, in the Power Core there comes a point where the raiding party must be split. Ideally, you will have two of each role covered in an effort to make the experience like two Alerts-within-a-Raid. Unfortunately my team deemed exploiting far easier and expected everyone to comply. There is, apparently, an unintended way to keep the party together.
This was unacceptable to me. The arguments came down to “It’s so much faster this way” and “There’s no way we can do this with only 4 people!”. Justifying a clear abuse of power (and I won’t explain HOW they were avoiding the split) to make things easier on yourself is not the way to play a game. What should have been an interesting and dynamic series of VERY difficult fights were rendered basically useless, all because a couple of players decided they wanted to stroll through the raid without putting forth any effort.
Not only does exploiting take away your learning experiences from the game, it can have a negative impact on the experience of other players. Do me a favor and don’t exploit, capisce?
Examples, questions, comments, or thoughts? Leave me something in the comments below! Hopefully next time we’ll be returning to our regularly scheduled individual game reviews!
–John