Well, to be blunt. There's a bit of an "snob" attitude behind it. Which - to be fair, I happen to agree with at least in part. Though my
objections have been mitigated recently with the addition of certain in-game features. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
COH/COV, you have to admit, appeals to a slice of the gaming playerbase who don't normally like MMOs. It's an MMO that breaks a LOT of the
"conventional wisdom" of MMOs. First - it's a superhero game in a market where it seems like 99% is high fantasy. Then, originally it didn't
even have any "loot" or even stats!
For most MMOs, the endgame is where the real action takes place. Even in WoW, which is VERY solo friendly for leveling and for casual players compared to other
Fantasy MMOs out there, the end game raids and PVP is really the ultimate goal. And to get there you have to have the appropriate gear. You'll completely
re-gear in fact, between 10-15 times on your way to the top at minimum IMHO.
In COH/COV though, there is no real "endgame" to speak of. True, there's more to do now for level 50s than there used to be (PVP, Ouroboros, Task
Forces, Strike Forces). But in COX, the aphorism "the journey is the destination" is very apt. Before Ouroboros was introduced, you did NOT want to
race to level your character because you'd outlevel content and leave yourself with nothing to do. You'd miss out on story arcs too.
So we've got a really different culture here, as a result.
The "issue" about farming is that people assume that you're AFK botting your way to easy influence like some people used to do back in the day. I
don't get this much anymore, but it used to be that if you were level 42 or above, you'd constantly get "tells" from people begging you to
powerlevel them. To be a "bridge" to a level 50 tank doing herding of an entire map. This was seen as noobish and stupid behavior because it was
MASSIVELY missing the whole point of the game!
Additionally, now we have a different problem. The "Chinese Farmer" problem that popped up as soon as this game acquired an economy. Sweatshop gamers
with macros and bots running characters that are only there to get rare items to sell at ridiculous jacked up prices on the market or massive amounts of
influence to trade for real money.
So there's definitely a negative stigma attached to "farmers".
What Kokuten is doing however, as I said above, is not in the realm of the negative aspects.
Oh - and the whole "outleveling the content" issue is effectively dead now that we have Ouroboros and flashback missions. If there's a story arc
you want a character to go through, even though they might've missed it, you can go back to it.
So, for "old school" City of Heroes players, there's a bit of elitism. "We don't do things here like other MMOs do and we
_shouldn't_ be doing things like them either!"
And while I share that sentiment to a degree, I like to also think of myself as a practical sort. Having an economy and real numbers available like in other
MMOs is fine with me because of the way it's been implemented. That stuff is there, but it's NOT NECESSARY. You can choose to ignore it utterly and it
won't necessarily impact your game. Particularly if you stick to PVE.
But you can maybe see why people cringe at the idea and don't want to be associated with it, yes?
objections have been mitigated recently with the addition of certain in-game features. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
COH/COV, you have to admit, appeals to a slice of the gaming playerbase who don't normally like MMOs. It's an MMO that breaks a LOT of the
"conventional wisdom" of MMOs. First - it's a superhero game in a market where it seems like 99% is high fantasy. Then, originally it didn't
even have any "loot" or even stats!
For most MMOs, the endgame is where the real action takes place. Even in WoW, which is VERY solo friendly for leveling and for casual players compared to other
Fantasy MMOs out there, the end game raids and PVP is really the ultimate goal. And to get there you have to have the appropriate gear. You'll completely
re-gear in fact, between 10-15 times on your way to the top at minimum IMHO.
In COH/COV though, there is no real "endgame" to speak of. True, there's more to do now for level 50s than there used to be (PVP, Ouroboros, Task
Forces, Strike Forces). But in COX, the aphorism "the journey is the destination" is very apt. Before Ouroboros was introduced, you did NOT want to
race to level your character because you'd outlevel content and leave yourself with nothing to do. You'd miss out on story arcs too.
So we've got a really different culture here, as a result.
The "issue" about farming is that people assume that you're AFK botting your way to easy influence like some people used to do back in the day. I
don't get this much anymore, but it used to be that if you were level 42 or above, you'd constantly get "tells" from people begging you to
powerlevel them. To be a "bridge" to a level 50 tank doing herding of an entire map. This was seen as noobish and stupid behavior because it was
MASSIVELY missing the whole point of the game!
Additionally, now we have a different problem. The "Chinese Farmer" problem that popped up as soon as this game acquired an economy. Sweatshop gamers
with macros and bots running characters that are only there to get rare items to sell at ridiculous jacked up prices on the market or massive amounts of
influence to trade for real money.
So there's definitely a negative stigma attached to "farmers".
What Kokuten is doing however, as I said above, is not in the realm of the negative aspects.
Oh - and the whole "outleveling the content" issue is effectively dead now that we have Ouroboros and flashback missions. If there's a story arc
you want a character to go through, even though they might've missed it, you can go back to it.
So, for "old school" City of Heroes players, there's a bit of elitism. "We don't do things here like other MMOs do and we
_shouldn't_ be doing things like them either!"
And while I share that sentiment to a degree, I like to also think of myself as a practical sort. Having an economy and real numbers available like in other
MMOs is fine with me because of the way it's been implemented. That stuff is there, but it's NOT NECESSARY. You can choose to ignore it utterly and it
won't necessarily impact your game. Particularly if you stick to PVE.
But you can maybe see why people cringe at the idea and don't want to be associated with it, yes?