Quick one for today, which I think is going to build towards a more substantial post: is anyone else highly bothered by an MMO doing “double XP/loot/whatever” weekends?
I think I’m primarily bothered by it because such events bring “this is a game” to the forefront over “this is a living world”. I guess if your MMO is already highly ‘gamey’, not that big a deal, but the closer your MMO tries to be a virtual world, the more this bothers me. Especially when it’s done with a very broad brush, like “all loot sources doubled” vs “this particular type of mob is now 50% more likely to drop X”.
Hardcore Casual 
The games that do this are typically only loot slot machines anyway. Or they are F2P gambling machines that double your odds. Casino’s don’t often have “happy hours” but I know from volunteering that BINGOs do.
Personally doesn’t bother me, nor does it motivate me. Seems more like a way to get a media headline to me.
I can understand a double-xp weekend and I’m not bothered by it. If a game is kinda grindy, such cheesiness can create some temporary excitement. But it’s just that, temporary…
I’m more concerned when games do double-loot. To me, this is an obvious statement that the developer doesn’t understand it’s own economy and speaks directly to your ‘this is a living world’ comment.
It’s like saying… we don’t care about balance or inflation, we know you like your shinies, so go get some shinies!
That said.. I’ll still be logging in for my shinies. :)
I don’t know if I’d use as strong a term as “highly bothered”, but I do think it’s pretty lame.
Agree 100% that it sends the message that this is a gamey game not a worldy world.
And even in a game that is 100% game, I think things like this should be targeted to encourage people to maybe try something different.
e.g. Diablo 3 recently had a “double legendary drop chance!” weekend (which, for reasons inexplicable, they decided to make permanent, but that’s another story). I think it would have made more sense if they’d identified an under-trafficked part of the game and just boosted that. Like “double legendary drop chance in storyline mode!”
Slightly exaggerated but I always consider it a sign of desperation to draw some short attention span players.
Double pussy is an ultimate nerd fantasy. It all comes from there.
But seriously devs use it because it works. Wot online goes up 50% during such events.
I think it’s a perfectly legitimate way to promote a good product. Double whatever weekends tend to draw mor players for the set period. These players might actually enjoy the gameplay, rekindle a burnt out fire and return after the weekend frenzy is over. Of course the rewards should not unbalance the whole experience. Gaining a level in three days instead of six seems appropriate.
In the case of Df I understand the double loot weekend was launched to create an extra faucet to counter an unintended sink by the rollback caused by the faucets of exploitation. IMO it would have been better to ban all exploiters or seize their assets.
When playing something like World of Tanks, I love it, because there really is no virtual world to worry about.
When playing an MMORPG, its heart is really the virtual world within which it is situated. Within that, all “game” artifacts detract from the virtual reality of the world and emphasise its gaminess, and this includes letting players know what XP or level or skill points or item level that their character has amassed. Not just on double XP weekend, but all the time.
You can’t imagine Garrosh telling Vol’jin in World of Warcraft “I’ve got to ilvl 592 now, and I have 15million health, 15% hit and 72% crit. I can typically do 15M DPS”. Yet players do this all the time. This of course adds to the gaminess of the virtual world and detracts from immersion. The solution to this is to hide such numbers from the players (but then how can they make informed decisions?)
While the game numbers are visible, the gaminess is emphasized, whether they are doubled one weekend or not.
I cannot recall a time where I have logged into a game merely because they were having some sort of bonus weekend.
For games that are sort of “collect currency to unlock new content” like World of Tanks for new tanks or War Thunder for new planes, I have sometimes played more during those events, but I haven’t gone back to play them just because such events were occurring.
I don’t really have a problem with such events when they are about XP, and occasionally they work out for me if I am working on an alt or trying to get into some new, level restricted content. And marketing only has so many levers they can pull to stimulate interest between content drops, especially if the game is already F2P.
Loot drops and special loot… you could probably convince me there was a problem with that.
It’s a way to let more casual players catch up with the hardcore, or in world of tanks it’s force you to buy gold to make use of the extra XP(It’s never double silver). Special events also make your game feel more alive even if the virtual world is minimal.