State of the game

That's why I just help my league. If people want to join it means they want help.

Can I have your aura? Free aura? Stop hogging the aura.

The Devs (and not the ones in charge now) made decisions, right or wrong,that drove away a lot of long time players. Then they made more decisions that drove away more people. It got to the point, where after 3 years of playing regularly, even I had to take an extended break. The folks in charge NOW promised things would get better, and honestly I did not believe them, but they have. Most of the changes I felt sorely needed addressing apparently HAVE been addressed (pending the sp update). Now we've attracted a lot of new players, which really is great, but there are not that many experienced players left to show them the ropes. If enough of us remain and remain patient with these folks, we can do a lot of good. Further not on the state of the game: my 10 yr old and 12 yr old have started playing again after a long absence. smh

Agree. Yet all of them are singular cases.

Been in CoH for years, Justice Server. Games back then just didn't have their own official wiki. SWG had none, was all fan-/player-made. But the point about reading is: The gaming companies themselves and THIS gaming company specifically tries to make "gaming" as easy as possible for the "lazy bunch".

SWG is a super prime example about that - when that dumbing down patch called NGE was fired at the audience and backlashed, a PR woman from LucasArts (Nancy McIntyre, actual spelling may vary) entered the media and tried to defend the upgrade, and with the words "there was much reading in the game, lots of reading" started to explain how repulsive reading is to a younger audience. Until SWG was closed down the whole forums referred to her as "Nancy 'Reading is Bad' McIntyre" after that interview. Mepps will probably remember. Point is: gaming companies prefer that kind of audience. They actually want those people in their games.

Curious, interested, motivated - no matter how you put it, the urge to care for it needs to come from within.
Agreed, however, on the players not caring. Same players don't care about how their smartphone works, nor their laptop, netbook, whatever. Some of them are/will be even more helpless than you feel when facing computer trouble of any kind. They are not interested in the how, they want to pursue their fun, no matter how dumbed down their idea of fun is by human standards.

As I posted in another thread I can't remember: these younger generations of gamers got used to "pay-2-not-play"-systems, buying themselves their pathes throught the lower, tedious levels of content. DCUO adds those systems meanwhile, but does not offer "enough" of those systems yet for those kids. That teen you ran into would probably have happily spended 5-10 bucks on buying a CC hood from the marketplace (or the ingame cash to buy one) if offered. Maybe not at once, but after killing the wrong Captain Cold for the 7th or 10th time. To them, spending (Dad's) money is always easier than reading up.