Wouldn't it be nice

Things seem pretty quiet it the world of FML of late.

The only hot topics seem to be the ongoing ME saga and the major/minor competition form seems to finally be getting some attention after I have spent the last year or so complaining about it !

Those issues aside there seems to be a general despondence from many of the long time FML'ers. I think in the past there was always a big issue to unite people, like the Gameworlds were dying, the game was going to die and various other big issues. I really don't think we have any massive issues like this any more. I think due to this people are starting to see the bigger picture and they are thinking "you know what ? I'm kind of bored"

Of course, many are bored because of ME related issues but it goes further than that and back to the age old issue of there not being a right lot to do. Other than a few daily things to do you are essentially limited to playing matches.

So what exactly is it people DO want from the game ? I'd have thought that PvE would have been of massive interest to people. A proper engaging PvE experience where there is always something for you to do when you want to do it and how you want to do it. Something to take away from the stress and worry of official league games.

But judging by the lack of interest in the what would you like to see in PvE thread, then maybe not ?

I don't get it, what do people want to do instead ? Play Poker ? Top Trumps ? What else is there to do in an football game other than play matches ? I really don't think an MMO can work without a proper PvE experience. I don't know of one which works on a purely PvP basis, although I guess there probably is one.

While i'm generalising a lot here, the FM titles have always tended to attract a different type of gamer to normal games. I always got the impression that many FM players never really played _other_ games. There's nothing wrong with this but I think it is giving people some kind of tunnel vision where they are just seeing PvP and live games as the be all and end all.

There's 24 hours in a day, there's people online from other timezones, many leagues only have ~40 games in a season.... That's a couple a day. What are the odds you are actually going to be able to PvP all of these games ? Are you going to come online and sit there for 12 hours waiting for the time the other manager comes on ?

Maybe you WOULD stay online for 12 hours if there was something else to do ? But I have a life and don't want to spend 12 hours online. Yes, because everyone who starts playing an MMO does it with the clear intention to spend their entire life on it don't they ? I remember about 10 years ago, being up at 3am in the morning fucking mining ore on Ultima Online. Why ? I have no idea at all why this seemed like a good idea. But alas, when I finally woke up the next day I logged on to wrestle come cows for several hours. During this time period I got PK'ed several times and had all my stuff stolen (ahh back when MMOs weren't fairly safe land... anyway I digress), met other players and had lots of fun.

I remember mining for a few hours when someone decided to come visit my mine with the intention of killing me. Unfortunately for him, i'd acquired some mage skills, trapped him in my mine with a wall and a blade spirit before teleporting away and watched the comedy from outside.

The point of this story ? I was online doing PvE and as a consequence I ended up in a PvP scenario, and the reason I was online to do the PvP was because of the PvE. Is this making sense yet ?

Anyway, reward point stuff and about a million other small things would be pretty easy to add into the game at some level i'd imagine but with FML progress is always slow. PvE would no doubt be a bigger job to properly but i'd imagine it would be entirely possibly for it to form the focus of a proper update. From the recent Korea announcement I get the impression that the FML development is RB doing something with youth academies while Ov does the rest of the coding.

Before the reset Ov seemed to be coding 24/7 so I expect he's back to sane hours these days which is making progress even slower. Will this ever change, will the team ever get better ? I read this probably little known and inactive blog a few months back which makes me wonder if it will?