“This boss is impossible. It simply cannot be done!” – “I can’t watch health bars and watch the ground at the SAME time!” – “How am I suppose to interrupt that ability AND jump?!” – “I’m Panzer.”

How many times have you heard these lines to cover screw ups in ventrilo? How many times have you actually been the one saying them? Does it bother you when you see someone else do something that you feel would never have happened to you?

MMOs contain some of the most interesting pools of mixed player skill levels. This ranges from the insane min-maxers to the player that is having trouble using the mouse to control the game. The MMO heads and CEOS have to keep this in mind to keep the “lights on” at there big floating castle in the sky; The game designers try to create a game that’s available to anyone and can be enjoyed by even those people that can barely understand the concepts in front of them. After all, every player that is paying for a subscription for these MMOs is another ten dollar bill they can light the cigars with! These same game designers are required to also cater to the super elite players and create a challenge for them – because at the end of the day that’s what players want to hear about, they need to know there is more to their experience… even if they never properly taste it. Zyley once told me that only 3% of the mmo communities in Warcraft actually get to experience true raiding. As a result a lot of the raid content that is put in front of us, the players, never actually gets to be seen. The drive to be able to see this sometimes borderlines on frustrating – however there is no sweeter sense of accomplishment then downing a boss for the first time and ripping its loot from where ever it is that the boss keeps it.

The biggest factors when dealing with these kinds of challenges are the players. As these MMOs have matured over time, the casual communities started standing up and saying “okay, we want to play too.” This resulted in what we have today – the quick, small, fast raid groups. These raid groups tend to have very little patience for wiping and very quickly lose their morale thinking that it’s just not in them to do it. This is where, I feel, the separation begins to happen between a “raider” and a “player”.

“Wiping is part of raiding.” As a long time raider, I have seen more reasons for wipes then people can shake a stick at. The players that have managed to stick it out and learn from the wipes have learned from their mistakes and those around them and have become better players for it. Those that get discouraged tend to get bored and move on. This is all part of the structure of MMO raiders. Not everyone is cut out to be a full time raider. Raiding has never been … and I hope will never be simple. A five man group can be tossed together and general bulldozed – while I never agreed with that, it seems to be the best way to keep the populace happy. With 97% on the population only seeing that as their MMO experience, it’s easy to see why it is that the game designers would want to make it simple and less frustrating. But Players don’t learn from it and don’t get to enhance their playing abilities. Adversity breeds strength.

What do you think? Can you remember a moment in your MMO career that made you a better player?