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[jnecros]

WoW raids are complex, I don't care what anyone says....Getting 25 people to work together for 3-6 hours to fight a boss or clear a raid is a major challange, like herding cats. Yeah, the bossess are not that complicated unto themselves, but player character management is very complex. 

[Puck]

As soon as you try to herd 25 adolescent males, even shape sorter boards are getting complex.

But in WoW, you take a glance at the situation, and even the simplest of minds with a little rock paper scissor experience can properly and correctly analyze what's going on in a matter of seconds. It is not complex at all.

It might be fun, it might be challenging (because you require a largish group), but you dont need a lot of brains. At all.

And we're not arguing whether its fun or challenging but whether its complex, per se. And in that regard WoW is ranking VERY low, which is one of the major reasons why it has so many subscribers.

[fenrif]

WoW raids are complex, I don't care what anyone says....Getting 25 people to work together for 3-6 hours to fight a boss or clear a raid is a major challange, like herding cats. Yeah, the bossess are not that complicated unto themselves, but player character management is very complex.

Getting 25 people to sit quietly in one place for 6 hours is complex. That doesn't mean sitting quietly is a complex task. Ignoring that, that still means at most WoW is only complex for the person managing the raid, so 1 out of 26 people. That's not very complex at all.

[Dura]

As someone who's been 2650+ rated in 3v3 ( and 2300+ in the other 2 - top 20 for my class worldwide), I can tell you one thing: pvp sure is complex as hell, if you care to try and master your class. I can see Puck dissing WoW, yet you do not seem to understand that there are 2 brackets of content : the casual content, which anyone can clear, and the hard content, which less than 1% of players are good enough to play.

Now, those players see and beat the content not because they have superior reflexes (in pve anyway) or anything like that. They get to see it because they have superior knowledge about the game, because they spend time making macros and balancing their groups optimally, going for every last 0,5% of efficiency, and making sure they can squeeze the extra second of damage on a boss. You sure do require brains to make things work in 3v3, or 5v5. Just because you arent paralysed by the amount of choice (like eve), doesent mean that it can't be meaningful - you have more than 5 abilities, and more often than not you'll require around 30-70 keybinds to play your class correctly.

In response to Virtz : WoW has a simple leveling, crafting and monster respawn system because thats not where the heart of the game is. The game is designed mostly around high-end pve and pvp - and I can guarantee you you'll find very,very complex gameplay there. If you look at eve, the missions and fighting are extremely simple; press 5 buttons and you're done for 90% of the playerbase, yet it doesent mean the game is simple, that's just not the challenging aspect of it.

[Puck]

the hard content, which less than 1% of players are good enough to play.

I AM talking about the "hard" content and even pvp.

The hard comes from small margins in certain numerical values and not complexity. It's more about "discipline" than creativity.

[Dura]

the hard content, which less than 1% of players are good enough to play.

I AM talking about the "hard" content and even pvp.

The hard comes from small margins in certain numerical values and not complexity. It's more about "discipline" than creativity.

I assume you've done the ICC hardmodes? ( or 4 horsemen when it came out)

[fenrif]

As someone who's been 2650+ rated in 3v3 ( and 2300+ in the other 2 - top 20 for my class worldwide), I can tell you one thing: pvp sure is complex as hell, if you care to try and master your class. I can see Puck dissing WoW, yet you do not seem to understand that there are 2 brackets of content : the casual content, which anyone can clear, and the hard content, which less than 1% of players are good enough to play.

Now, those players see and beat the content not because they have superior reflexes (in pve anyway) or anything like that. They get to see it because they have superior knowledge about the game, because they spend time making macros and balancing their groups optimally, going for every last 0,5% of efficiency, and making sure they can squeeze the extra second of damage on a boss. You sure do require brains to make things work in 3v3, or 5v5. Just because you arent paralysed by the amount of choice (like eve), doesent mean that it can't be meaningful - you have more than 5 abilities, and more often than not you'll require around 30-70 keybinds to play your class correctly.

In response to Virtz : WoW has a simple leveling, crafting and monster respawn system because thats not where the heart of the game is. The game is designed mostly around high-end pve and pvp - and I can guarantee you you'll find very,very complex gameplay there. If you look at eve, the missions and fighting are extremely simple; press 5 buttons and you're done for 90% of the playerbase, yet it doesent mean the game is simple, that's just not the challenging aspect of it.

So theres content in WoW that only 1% (or less apparently) of the millions of players have seen?

Thats quite honestly astounding.

[Dura]

Yes, much as in eve: alot of players dont even leave high-sec. Now imagine with a bunch of soccer moms playing the game and well...

As for pvp, arena uses an ELO rating so 99% of participants dont get to fight the top players. Max reward bracket is top 0,5% of teams.

[Thexor]

Yes, much as in eve: alot of players dont even leave high-sec. Now imagine with a bunch of soccer moms playing the game and well...

As for pvp, arena uses an ELO rating so 99% of participants dont get to fight the top players. Max reward bracket is top 0,5% of teams.

Thing is, in EVE, even the players sticking to high-sec get much of the complexity. Fitting ships is a little easier, since you know what the NPCs will be packing and can build a ship to counter that; but economics and most of the other factors that make EVE complicated are still present.

Content that less than 1% of the population sees does not, overall, make the game complex. Or, more precisely, it doesn't make the game complex for the 99% of the population that never experiences them.  Ultra-top-tier PvP being complex doesn't matter for the average Joe on the ground.

WoW raids are complex, I don't care what anyone says....Getting 25 people to work together for 3-6 hours to fight a boss or clear a raid is a major challange, like herding cats. Yeah, the bossess are not that complicated unto themselves, but player character management is very complex.

Getting 25 people to sit quietly in one place for 6 hours is complex. That doesn't mean sitting quietly is a complex task. Ignoring that, that still means at most WoW is only complex for the person managing the raid, so 1 out of 26 people. That's not very complex at all.

Again with the "not really relevant" comment... in any game, getting 25 people to work together is tough. Heck, getting any moderate-sized number of people to work together is tough!

And WoW is certainly not 'special' with their raids. In fact, almost every MMO out there has at least some situation wherein a whole bunch of people will group up and tackle a major enemy. If we're still comparing to EVE, we've got server-crashing 1000+ ship battles (and they're against a diverse array of enemy ships, instead of a predictable boss, meaning you're far from guaranteed a win).

[fenrif]

Again with the "not really relevant" comment... in any game, getting 25 people to work together is tough. Heck, getting any moderate-sized number of people to work together is tough!

And WoW is certainly not 'special' with their raids. In fact, almost every MMO out there has at least some situation wherein a whole bunch of people will group up and tackle a major enemy. If we're still comparing to EVE, we've got server-crashing 1000+ ship battles (and they're against a diverse array of enemy ships, instead of a predictable boss, meaning you're far from guaranteed a win).

This is pretty much my feeling. WoW is, at most, as complex as every other MMO because as people have said: the base components aren't complex at all, and much of what is complex is because you're dealing with other players. PVP is complex because you're competing with hundreds of thousands of other real people. Moreso because MMO PVP is more stat/gear/build focused than skill based (not saying theres no skill involved, but skill doesn't play as big a part as say an FPS, or a RTS).

Saying the game is complex because only one person can be the #1 PVP champion thus most of the players wont ever experience that is kind of a cop out.

[Ivefan]

Hopefully you'll agree when i say that Dwarf fortress is a complex game.
It does not really require anything from the player except being able to use the interface, a basic understanding of how to on the fort and to not fuck up(i.e fluid levers and such)
When making a comparison between this and any mmo, wouldn't this mean that they are, not simple perhaps, but they are not complex?
I'll make another comparison between diablo 2 and WoW due to the similarity with items, skills & stats.
Anyone can beat the game on hardest difficulty and some can crush the bosses in seconds.
Becoming one of the ones that can kill in seconds just requires some time to look over the items to be able to factor them into simple calculations.
This is true for both WoW and D2, but what makes it so that only 1% of the playerbase can take part?
First you'll need to do read up on items, then do the math, then go out and grind for the item. Only 1% got the time, the enthusiasm and is stubborn enough to do this. After that the player requires the skills needed to implement your tactics.
Just adding 10 more choices to rock, scissor & paper does not make it a complex game, It just changes the odds.
And why do you need to get 0,5% increased effectiveness? Because the opposing players try to do the same.
I admit that one plays MMO's to play with other players, But then it is the players that might make your experience intricate, not the game mechanics.

The way you say that WoW is complex just works in other ways in other games, draw a parallel between WoW and a shooter where there is no numbers. The 1% top players might have somewhat of a complex playstyle while kicking ass, And FPS games are simple games.

My point is just that no mmo i can think of is a complex game.

PS. Fenrif kinda summarized my thoughts ;P

[Virex]

Dwarf Fortress's complexity mainly comes from the fact that there's no tutorial, most functions aren't detailed anywhere and the game's actively trying to make your life hard trough "features" that cause non-obvious problems, such as wall-builders getting themselves stuck, defenders preferring to party instead of guard and nobles wrecking your productive population. To each of these problems, there is a standard, but also non-obvious solution. Once you know these, Dwarf Fortress is just a sequence of tricks that you apply. This makes it an excellent sandbox game where you can easily build an inverted, magma filled pyramid with at least some challenge, but it does not make for a complex game. There are no real choices since almost everything can be done in one way only. Where this is not the case the choices are either equal or one is clearly superior/inferior. I would say that Dwarf Fortress is simpler then Starcraft. More detailed, sure. But not more complex.


As for a really complex game (not MMO though), try Achron. Time travel in a multiplayer RTS could easily rank as one of the most complex game concepts.


I also refute the notion that "Rock-Paper-Scissor-Paper clip-Hammer-Bucket-Pin Up-Horseman of The Apocalypse-jiggly boobs-Hat-linux kernel" can't make a complex game. The trick is that with a limited amount of resources you have to expect all the kinds of enemies you can come up against and have an adequate reaction to it. Complexity is not having arctan(20*e^1554 -0.98) options, but having a limited amount of resources to expend on dealing with a variety of opponents in which the player has to correctly identify the way to expend those resources. I have never played WoW, but Guild Wars covered this in a pretty smart way. By limiting the amount of skills a player can have at hand at any moment, players are forced to consider the kinds of opponents they may meet and formulate a proper way to deal with them. Another example is Aurora, in which the player has to keep track of a lot of different resources, possible technologies and possible set-ups for ships. It's crucial to figure out how to secure sufficient resources for future expansion and to correctly identify the opposition's preferences when it comes to weapons and ship types so one can act correctly. (It also suffers from the same obfuscation problems DF has, but that's a dead horse I won't beat anymore)

[Virtz]

Complexity is not having arctan(20*e^1554 -0.98) options, but having a limited amount of resources to expend on dealing with a variety of opponents in which the player has to correctly identify the way to expend those resources.

Difficulty =/= complexity. And the result of arctan ranges from -pi/2 to pi/2, that's a pretty strange number of options to have.

[dogstile]

For anyone saying wow isn't complex, do me a favour.

Come up with an equipment loadout, key bindings and an efficient macro setup for me. Then tell me what buffs i should be packing and what i should be doing and where i should be standing when fighting the lich king.

I mean, obviously you can do it and its easy.

Edit: I play hunter. Enjoy

[Briggsy16]

I agree Dogstile.

Some of WoWs features aren't complex but to say the end game content isn't complex is a just naive..