Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Am I the only one who hates quest grinding? (rant inside)
This discussion has been closed.
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Comments
It makes a huge difference. Lets take WoW for example. Both player A and player B play 20 hours a week... Player A does all the quests while player B just grinds on mobs.... Player A will hit max level way faster then player B.
So if we do what you and some of the others are suggesting we are only going to gimp ourselfs. Plus in games like WoW and WAR, quest give you items that you cannot get by just killing mobs. So again your gimping yourself by not doing what the game is designed for.
WoW has less available options then EQ for a player. If you are X level go to this zone in WoW and level till you get to X level then move to X zones. At least in EQ1 you had several zones at each level to go play in.
Think of it this way. WoW is like a train ride, the train follows the tracks to each station (quest hub). EQ you could pick any number of zones to level up in depending on what you felt like killing that day. Don't tell me other wise, I leveled up in many different zones at each level because I love exploring and see what "world" had to offer.
Group exp grinding is not perfect but it gave far more options then the solo quest grinding we see now in games.
How can you even say that the new games give more options to the players is beyond me.
And unless you have friends playing with you, getting a group to go grind mobs with is impossiable in these new games because everyone knows that solo questing is the fastest way to level.
Sooner or Later
If girinding mobs for XP is fun for you then I would think you would prefer WoW since you wuold spend longer doing it and as such have more fun. In your situation if you went the quest route you would be gimping your fun since you would be hitting max level faster and then you would not be able to grind for xp anymore and would just be farming. I do assume that you are playing MMOs for fun and not just to show off who has the bigger e-peen at max level. As such the progression speed of other players should be completely irrelevant to you.
As far as your inability to find people who play like you, I really cannot help you there. It's not like you would want the devs to force the players to play in ways that are not fun for them just so you would have people to group up with. I mean other players are not content to be tweaked and melded to fit some vision.
If girinding mobs for XP is fun for you then I would think you would prefer WoW since you wuold spend longer doing it and as such have more fun. In your situation if you went the quest route you would be gimping your fun since you would be hitting max level faster and then you would not be able to grind for xp anymore and would just be farming. I do assume that you are playing MMOs for fun and not just to show off who has the bigger e-peen at max level. As such the progression speed of other players should be completely irrelevant to you.
As far as your inability to find people who play like you, I really cannot help you there. It's not like you would want the devs to force the players to play in ways that are not fun for them just so you would have people to group up with. I mean other players are not content to be tweaked and melded to fit some vision.
Ok, again, finding people to group with in a quest grind game is nearly impossible because the design of that type of game forces people to avoid grouping just as much as a game like EQ forced people to look for groups. Neither one is forcing you to group or solo but the design makes one or the other thing much more rewarding and one or the other much less practical.
In a game like WoW grouping is not only unnecessary for the core gameplay but it actually slows you down. If the mobs in WoW were exactly like they are now (which is rather weak for their level and easily soloed) but the quests weren't there I think you would see a lot of grouping even though people would have no real need to group.
It's that constant, hectic running around plus, as has been pointed out, the additional straticfication of the players by the sequence of quests that makes grouping so completely impractical that it's easier to simply solo your way through.
So with WoW you could say that the devs are forcing people to solo just as much as the EQ devs forced people to group. You didn't have to group in EQ but it was more rewarding to group so people did. You don't have to solo in WoW but it's more rewarding to solo (faster and less hassel) so good luck finding a group.
If girinding mobs for XP is fun for you then I would think you would prefer WoW since you wuold spend longer doing it and as such have more fun. In your situation if you went the quest route you would be gimping your fun since you would be hitting max level faster and then you would not be able to grind for xp anymore and would just be farming. I do assume that you are playing MMOs for fun and not just to show off who has the bigger e-peen at max level. As such the progression speed of other players should be completely irrelevant to you.
As far as your inability to find people who play like you, I really cannot help you there. It's not like you would want the devs to force the players to play in ways that are not fun for them just so you would have people to group up with. I mean other players are not content to be tweaked and melded to fit some vision.
Ok, again, finding people to group with in a quest grind game is nearly impossible because the design of that type of game forces people to avoid grouping just as much as a game like EQ forced people to look for groups. Neither one is forcing you to group or solo but the design makes one or the other thing much more rewarding and one or the other much less practical.
In a game like WoW grouping is not only unnecessary for the core gameplay but it actually slows you down. If the mobs in WoW were exactly like they are now (which is rather weak for their level and easily soloed) but the quests weren't there I think you would see a lot of grouping even though people would have no real need to group.
It's that constant, hectic running around plus, as has been pointed out, the additional straticfication of the players by the sequence of quests that makes grouping so completely impractical that it's easier to simply solo your way through.
So with WoW you could say that the devs are forcing people to solo just as much as the EQ devs forced people to group. You didn't have to group in EQ but it was more rewarding to group so people did. You don't have to solo in WoW but it's more rewarding to solo (faster and less hassel) so good luck finding a group.
As long as you keep thinking you're forced to solo in WOW, you're hopeless. Sorry, but you are. So you're saying doing a dungeon isn't core to the game? I'm sorry, I thought content was content and any content is core to having fun and having fun is the core of the game. Reaching max level is NOT THE POINT. It might be the point for some, but its not the point for everyone. Most people who complains about WOW always share the same problem. They're rushing when theres absolutely no reason to. The core of playing WOW is having fun at your own pace. Thats the point. Thats the freedom it offered over EQ. If playing with your friends is more fun, thats what you should be doing. Purposely ignoring people and playing alone because being social slows you down means you're purposely ruining the game for yourself. You're choosing to make the game as boring as possible.
Whats with this slowing you down attitude? You know where you got that? EQ, thats where. You're attitude is all rush, rush, reach max level fast, fast, because thats what Verant and Sony taught you. How sad. You see Blizzard didn't make leveling so dead boring and didn't put all the best content at the end like in EQ. Early dungeons are just as much fun as later dungeons. Newbie zones are just as cool as later ones. The whole journey is fun for most people. As long as you're stuck in the mindset of how quickly you can level, its no wonder you can't enjoy WOW or any new MMO. You're in such a rush to beat the game, you forgot that you can't.
Do you not see how stupid it sounds saying a game forces you to solo when all the best content revolves around group play, all the best rewards revolve around group play, and since grouping up is the only way to be really social, the point of being online is group play. Grouping makes WOW more fun. CHoosing not to do it means you're trying to make the game as boring as possible. If the whole point of playing WOW is reaching max level as quickly as possible, ignoring all the content, other people and everything else that makes the game great, you simply have no reason to ^%$&$*. Its like complaining that it hurts when you hit yourself? DUH!!!
Man... not a single ex-Asheron's Call player here to teach these people what a real MMO is.
Quest grinding is fun and superior to making your own adventure - sure thing, if that doesn't sound delusional to a rational human than I don't know what does.
For the record EQ is the closest to wow-like of all the older MMOs but it wasn't the only one that existed and don't you forget it
Like so many posts, telling players that they should enjoy a game a different way is rather pointless. There are people who don't like the World of Warcraft formula. There are people who don't like Rocky Road ice cream too. It doesn't make that flavor objectively bad, no matter how many people dislike it. But it certainly is subjectively bad to those who do.
I don't see World of Warcraft doing anything different from EverQuest except to soften and structure the experience. If anything, World of Warcraft has more problems with stratification of the player base because players are constantly on their own level or on their own quest. Miss ten minutes of gameplay and your new buddy is in a different experience in World of Warcraft. From a solo standpoint, that's great because the content is always changing. From a grouping standpoint, it's a barrier to developing community.
Although EverQuest suffered from stratification, the glacial pace of advancement brought a certain stability. You knew that you'd be level 38 for the next couple weeks, and you'd be killing the same monsters - perhaps even the exact same room - for most of that time. The same was true for everyone else. People got to know each other. Dark Age of Camelot continued that pattern, but at a somewhat less glacial pace.
I agree that pretty much all the content in World of Warcraft is kinda fun. Imagine if there were no levels and you just went around whacking monsters in various parts of the world for the fun of it.
But that wouldn't sate the desires of the folks who want to advance. It's the drug that draws players on in these games. It's why levels remain - to sell the drug of achievement and to draw the addicts customers. It's why more levels are added to the top of the game instead of adding new content in the middle.
I'm a social player. I like to group with folks. Unfortunately, World of Warcraft does not encourage grouping as a result of its fundamental structure. The goal is to advance through the content, and trying to form groups is simply too difficult. The best I tended to do was to trip over some guy who was having difficulty with the same quest that I was. We'd group to do the quest and then see if we were both going to move on to the next quest. It was even odds that we'd continue our separate ways.
My solution? Soloing together. Eliminate structured grouping from the game. That produces a fundamentally different game, but it's one that I'd like to see. Because then I can hop into the game, immediately join in on an activity with dozens of other players and have fun.
If girinding mobs for XP is fun for you then I would think you would prefer WoW since you wuold spend longer doing it and as such have more fun. In your situation if you went the quest route you would be gimping your fun since you would be hitting max level faster and then you would not be able to grind for xp anymore and would just be farming. I do assume that you are playing MMOs for fun and not just to show off who has the bigger e-peen at max level. As such the progression speed of other players should be completely irrelevant to you.
As far as your inability to find people who play like you, I really cannot help you there. It's not like you would want the devs to force the players to play in ways that are not fun for them just so you would have people to group up with. I mean other players are not content to be tweaked and melded to fit some vision.
Ok, again, finding people to group with in a quest grind game is nearly impossible because the design of that type of game forces people to avoid grouping just as much as a game like EQ forced people to look for groups. Neither one is forcing you to group or solo but the design makes one or the other thing much more rewarding and one or the other much less practical.
In a game like WoW grouping is not only unnecessary for the core gameplay but it actually slows you down. If the mobs in WoW were exactly like they are now (which is rather weak for their level and easily soloed) but the quests weren't there I think you would see a lot of grouping even though people would have no real need to group.
It's that constant, hectic running around plus, as has been pointed out, the additional straticfication of the players by the sequence of quests that makes grouping so completely impractical that it's easier to simply solo your way through.
So with WoW you could say that the devs are forcing people to solo just as much as the EQ devs forced people to group. You didn't have to group in EQ but it was more rewarding to group so people did. You don't have to solo in WoW but it's more rewarding to solo (faster and less hassel) so good luck finding a group.
As long as you keep thinking you're forced to solo in WOW, you're hopeless. Sorry, but you are. So you're saying doing a dungeon isn't core to the game? I'm sorry, I thought content was content and any content is core to having fun and having fun is the core of the game. Reaching max level is NOT THE POINT. It might be the point for some, but its not the point for everyone. Most people who complains about WOW always share the same problem. They're rushing when theres absolutely no reason to. The core of playing WOW is having fun at your own pace. Thats the point. Thats the freedom it offered over EQ. If playing with your friends is more fun, thats what you should be doing. Purposely ignoring people and playing alone because being social slows you down means you're purposely ruining the game for yourself. You're choosing to make the game as boring as possible.
Whats with this slowing you down attitude? You know where you got that? EQ, thats where. You're attitude is all rush, rush, reach max level fast, fast, because thats what Verant and Sony taught you. How sad. You see Blizzard didn't make leveling so dead boring and didn't put all the best content at the end like in EQ. Early dungeons are just as much fun as later dungeons. Newbie zones are just as cool as later ones. The whole journey is fun for most people. As long as you're stuck in the mindset of how quickly you can level, its no wonder you can't enjoy WOW or any new MMO. You're in such a rush to beat the game, you forgot that you can't.
Do you not see how stupid it sounds saying a game forces you to solo when all the best content revolves around group play, all the best rewards revolve around group play, and since grouping up is the only way to be really social, the point of being online is group play. Grouping makes WOW more fun. CHoosing not to do it means you're trying to make the game as boring as possible. If the whole point of playing WOW is reaching max level as quickly as possible, ignoring all the content, other people and everything else that makes the game great, you simply have no reason to ^%$&$*. Its like complaining that it hurts when you hit yourself? DUH!!!
I am sorry but are you okay? Verant sony taught us to rush to max level? I know you never played EQ now, no matter what you say, you never played EQ1. Dungeons in EQ were all over the level scale, tons of dungeons to go into and explorer and oh ya die and have to get your corpse back. Death sucked but still everyone explored the world, dungeons included. The end game content was not the only fun part. The content in EQ was fun from start to max. The god dam well in befallen.
I never rush to max level. I enjoy the journey to max level. The journey is the most important part of any MMO and the newer MMOs ruined the journey becuase of the easy mode gameplay. The journey means nothing because it is never at risk, it just keeps marching forward know matter what happens as long as you put in the time. I did not reach max level in EQ for over a year of playing and let me tell you I still remember that "ding" to 60 on my dwarf warrior. I had earned 60 after the hell levels. It was not handed to me because I played so many hours like the newer games. I enjoyed all the content that I could get my hands on
On the other hand, the only real fun I had in WoW were in raids Sure the journey was fun in spots but i felt like I was following a path. I loved tanking, it was a rush but it still never had the feeling like I was in trouble, even when I died, it was like okay, lets try this. In EQ, dieing was the last thing you wanted to do and because of this players did some amazing things to live. You have no idea what I am talking about but others who played EQ get it.
I am not picking on you but geez, you have it completely backwards and don't even know it. WoW has a quick leveling grind because of the quest hub to quest hub trail to max level. Sure the quest hubs have a few dungeons to explorer but after most people finish the quests for that dungeon, they stop running it.
Sooner or Later
Like so many posts, telling players that they should enjoy a game a different way is rather pointless. There are people who don't like the World of Warcraft formula. There are people who don't like Rocky Road ice cream too. It doesn't make that flavor objectively bad, no matter how many people dislike it. But it certainly is subjectively bad to those who do.
I don't see World of Warcraft doing anything different from EverQuest except to soften and structure the experience. If anything, World of Warcraft has more problems with stratification of the player base because players are constantly on their own level or on their own quest. Miss ten minutes of gameplay and your new buddy is in a different experience in World of Warcraft. From a solo standpoint, that's great because the content is always changing. From a grouping standpoint, it's a barrier to developing community.
Although EverQuest suffered from stratification, the glacial pace of advancement brought a certain stability. You knew that you'd be level 38 for the next couple weeks, and you'd be killing the same monsters - perhaps even the exact same room - for most of that time. The same was true for everyone else. People got to know each other. Dark Age of Camelot continued that pattern, but at a somewhat less glacial pace.
I agree that pretty much all the content in World of Warcraft is kinda fun. Imagine if there were no levels and you just went around whacking monsters in various parts of the world for the fun of it.
But that wouldn't sate the desires of the folks who want to advance. It's the drug that draws players on in these games. It's why levels remain - to sell the drug of achievement and to draw the addicts customers. It's why more levels are added to the top of the game instead of adding new content in the middle.
I'm a social player. I like to group with folks. Unfortunately, World of Warcraft does not encourage grouping as a result of its fundamental structure. The goal is to advance through the content, and trying to form groups is simply too difficult. The best I tended to do was to trip over some guy who was having difficulty with the same quest that I was. We'd group to do the quest and then see if we were both going to move on to the next quest. It was even odds that we'd continue our separate ways.
My solution? Soloing together. Eliminate structured grouping from the game. That produces a fundamentally different game, but it's one that I'd like to see. Because then I can hop into the game, immediately join in on an activity with dozens of other players and have fun.
Whats this horrible formula? Choice to solo or group up? To quest or not to quest. To PvP or not to PvP? People say they can't find groups and blame the game. Its not the game. Its YOU. People say they feel forced to play a certain way when NOTHING forces you into any particular play style. It only suggests that heres a quest you might want to do. It doesn't force you to click on it or follow it. If you feel forced, its not the game. Its YOU. No one can tell you to enjoy that, but to say the game forces you into any particular playstyle is litteral stupidity. The ONLY forced playstyle is if you want to be the BEST in the game, you'll HAVE TO to be social. Yes, what a horrible formula=)
Grouping isn't hard in WOW. Soloing is just so convenient, the simple act of talking to another person can make it seem like too much effort=) I guess I never found grouping up in WOW or any MMO hard. Join a guild or make a friends list and finding a group should be as easy as logging in, since the group invites should flood your chat bar. Blaming the game for a lack of basic social ettiquete is a pretty sorry excuse. MIght as well blame the game for not pressing all the buttons for you. Might as well ask for insta max level with a nice splash screen that says, Congrats, you won the game!!!
People prefer the most convenient way to play. Sad to say for many thats at the expense of being social. Still can't blame the game. If you're not being social, its your problem. Nothing is stopping you.
wow, I'm simply amazed. Let's look at this shall we.
First of all you are basically saying "I see things in one way therefore everyone automatically see it my way". I would never make such an assessment.
I would say in my experience, "yes" seeing a living world and seeing people doing things does make the game more fun. From the horse's mouth. It makes it more fun. There is a palpable difference in the world of say, a game like Oblivion, when compared to an mmo with regards to how the populace moves about and conducts its business. as far as your statement "if you aren't affecting the game world then there is no reason to play it", again, this is your opinion. But it's not fact. If I want to log in and stand in a corner and do nothing but watch people pass AND pay 15.00 per month for the privilege to do so then I will.
And that is the crux of the matter. People ARE playing mmo's and are enjoying them, therefore they are finding something of substance to their experience.
Your second example is not applicable. You are boiling down the mmo experience to just the tasks that one does. But since players are playing solo, there is obviously something that they are getting out of it. It's probably not just the tasks but being among a vibrant and huge world. Whether or not one can affect the game world is really up to the player itself. Yes, a game like Lineage 2 will have a greater connection to the player because of the game play (in my opinion) but it doesn't invalidate how another player perceives his/her experience in a game like WoW or LOTRO.
I do solo in mmo's and that's not what it's like. So this is obviously individual perception. In the end, players are playing and they are soloing and they are loving it. Short of the grouping police coming by and telling us how we should be playing, I think we will find our own fun. If it ceases to be fun then we will stop.
Most of what he says is true and i agree with him, i play MMOG's because it's a grping game, (well not anymore says the devs) now days it's a solo rpg with online elements mass quest grinds, speed leveling, it's no longer about the world/meeting people, it's about geting to "end game" and finding a guild and only talk and do stuff with that guild alone.
MMORPG - MQDORPG we need a fine line from the two, side note i used to love PuGs but now it's the most hated thing says players of today.
I don't see it as being true at all. But I think that's because there is a notable difference between early mmo players and current mmo players.
The problem seems to be that we are all arguing apples and oranges.
Not a lot of people played early mmo's. At least if you were to compare them to the amount of people today. And there were real reasons why people didn't play. besides the geek stigma, the amount of time that one had to put in these games in order to accomplish things was quite sizable. The earlier games were not everyone's cup of tea.
However, along comes WoW who looks at some of the things that people didn't like, they streamline it and suddenly it lowers the bar for players who aren't willing to look for hours for groups or spend hours upon hours just to have fun.
Also, I have to say, that there are so many sub issues with some of these complaints.
for intance, it seems that it's not really about questing but more about getting groups, keeping groups and being social. Something that quests might inhibit as people oftentimes drop the group after the quest is done.
Then, it's not just about getting groups but being social. wow. Here's the deal. I'll group with anyone of you but I DON"T want to be social.
I don't play these games to hang out and shoot the shit. I want to do the quest or grind or what have you. But I"m not interested in talking for talking's sake. I have real life friends to do that with.
And THAT is the real issue here. Some people are playing to play and to experience the game's content. But others are using these games as social outlets. I have no problem with that but that's not why I play. This is not to say I don't want to be social. But I don't want to talk and talk and talk about stuff. I want to play.
I can guarantee you that if we were to group and people were to start discussing things I'd have to turn off the group chat. Talk about ruining immersion.
Which then brings up the fact that perhaps that is why many solo. Because there is a bit of immersion breaking when you have some guy talking about sports, another about how x game is failing, another about his school, etc. I wouldn't sign up for that and I know a lot of people who also wouldn't.
However, group up to explore a dungeon or do quests or even grind and I'm in. But I don't want to shoot the shit (as I mentioned earlier).
What we seem to have here are completely different reasons to play these games. And that is what is causing the rift. Because some players still trying to assert their social play style and others are desiring a more focused game play experience.
And that is probalby why questing "kills' groups. It's hard to be social and keep groups together when people are reading text or listening to voice over dialogue.
edit: here's a thought. If you could group up and didn't have to quest, but the grouping required complete concentration and effort so that all it was more intense, say, like a raid, therefore no socializing, would people still paly mmos. Basically, if it was just about he gameplay?
Thank you Sovrath. Finally someone who understands how I experience the MMOs I've tried.
I'm uber-noob compared to all of you since I've only been playing MMOs for about 2 months. Before that the ones I'd tried years ago (EQ, FF11, etc) couldn't hold my attention for more than 2 hours of one day. Compared to playing online in the multiplayer component of single-player games I haven't found many MMOs that could hold my interest.
To get back to the subject my experience is similar to Sovrath. I joined a guild in ESO (ESO call them Clans). It ended up that the members used the clan chat channel as a glorified graphical chat room. Or at least that's how it came across to me. They were all praising each other about how wonderful this clan was compared to oh-so many others all these Old-Timer MMO-ers had experienced in dozens of other games because *gasp* the members would rattle off on any innane subject (very very little of which had to do with the actual game) that would pop into their heads - CONSTANTLY. They simply wouldn't shut up. And the subjects were so stupid. Sometimes I felt like typing "STFU PLEASE!!!!!!!! Your Constant Chatter That Has Nothing to Do with the Game is Driving Me Crazy!!!!"
No roleplaying mind you. Their constant non-game chatter was actively breaking the spell of being in an expansive game world. It didn't allow for suspension of disbelief. Or to use a phrase from movies. Their chatter was constantly 'breaking the fourth wall' (i.e. making a movie scene that reminds the audience they're watching the movie). And for a Old-School table-top RPG-er (2nd ed D&D, Whitewolf, Paladium, Chaosium, etc) that's what I'd been expecting of being in a guild. Instead it was Yahoo Chat channels all over again with a game shell wrapped around it. When the talk started devolving to discussions about porn, assorted porn actresses, being horny, sexual orientation, one's first experience in the sack vs. what it's like now, bisexual in-the-sack experiences vs. only doing it with members of the opposite - well...I'd had enough. I unchecked the box that lets one turn off the chatter but I stayed in the clan.
But then that got me in trouble with the Clan Leader because I wasn't "participating". She'd occasionally have us do a rollcall to make sure we were paying attention to the clan chat channel and I guess noticed when I stopped typing 'here'. She threatened to kick me out. This despite the fact that I'd participated in clan quests to level up skills one can only access by being in one. So briefly I turned on the chatter again. It had not changed. Still just as silly as ever and devoid of even a hint of roleplaying. So I left. And haven't joined another one since.
I like Sovrath will group with nearly anyone. Just don't expect me to chat with you. I'll help you with any quest you're on - even when it takes me far away from my own (I've done that on many an occasion too). But I won't chatter with you unless it's something directly about the game or that contributes to roleplaying it.
If you were a woman I'd marry you.
And interesting that you note all that sexual talk. I haven't run into a lot of that but I have seen it. It's as if people are either just hitting puberty or just plain don't know what to do with their hormones.
I'm all for whatever people want to do in the privacy of their own homes or elevators but at what point did they realize that everyone should know about all their intimate details.
It's as if 13 year old boys started ruling the world.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
This is you using the exact same argument against EQ and DAOC as I used against WoW.
The essence of this argument is that the path of least resistance determines the behavior of the playerbase. If you are going to use this logic yourself then you need to understand that you contradict yourself when you reject this argument when another person uses the EXACT SAME REASONING.
You either accept this logic or you don't. You need to decide which. You can't use it when it works for you and reject it when it works against you.
This is you using the exact same argument against EQ and DAOC as I used against WoW.
The essence of this argument is that the path of least resistance determines the behavior of the playerbase. If you are going to use this logic yourself then you need to understand that you contradict yourself when you reject this argument when another person uses the EXACT SAME REASONING.
You either accept this logic or you don't. You need to decide which. You can't use it when it works for you and reject it when it works against you.
I do not see how what the playerbase might or might not prefer is that relevant to your point. What should matter is whether the playstyle you prefer is viable as a fun way to play the game. In WoW leveling through mob grinding might be slower than questing and grinding but it is only marginally slower. As such as long as you do not base your enjoyment of the game on 'catching up to the Jones' then it is a perfectly viable progression path in WoW.
Whether soloing would be considered a viable progression path in EQ that I won't comment on.
Long long ago ( for me
i started my debut into the world of multiplayer online gaming with a game called Earth and Beyond , i putzed about in my little terran and discovered that computer gaming freaking rocked! here was something i could log into and play with other people any time i wanted , no running through the house with the game board and dice begging my bros to play. I was in SPACE to boot , computer gaming became board game x10 on a 3-d scale.
Unfortunatly EA came in like a overprotective parent calling bedtime and put EnB to bed ..permanently. so i upgraded my POS comp ( first time in many to come just to play a MMO ) so i could play SWG , and ohhhh nelly i could get on a bike and ride for miles???? first time i got that bike i drove for hours , exploration! it was that exploring and freedom of worlds not world that got my blood pumping , to see the new landscapes , the structures, the hills and drops , it was immersive for sure.
The exploring caught me in its net and soon while i played i inevitably made friends, there are just way to many cool people out there and nowhere near me in either country or state whom i never would have met and enriched my life if it wasnt for mmo'ing, and i never could have met them without talking about something besides my dwarf husband who cant keep his battleax clean...... they create roleplaying servers for a reason , do i mean to say all games have reg servers , pvp servers then your rp servers? NO, what im saying is i understand if ppl get into thier mmo's, RL can be a bitch and games were made for escapism but MMO's werent made to follow stringent RP rules, it would never fly.
In my modest but loyal decade playing MMO's i find a very , very small amount of ppl RP , true RP in character from log in to log out. to be fully honest i find it creepy, something about someone pretending to be a elf warrior having a bad day with monsters killing his family and vowing revenge makes me cringe and reminisce about furby's ( not the toy , and no i wont explain if you dont know lol ) I think i woulda laughed at my bro's or my friends if they even attempted to pretend they were a character in a paper or board game , and id prolly be making jabs at em till the day we died. I guess if you want a true immersive RP id say go into drama and become an actor not an mmo'er.
But let me say that i understand yet again why people RP and i dont mind , but i kinda cant be a part of that , just like you cant be a part of my asinine commentary about random stupid things in RL, ill just respect you and your fun time , and let me elaborate because this whole long dribble story concludes to that point , people dont respect boundaries that aren't laid out clearly , and players cant tell who wants to talk and who doesnt, and if you do talk to them, what to talk about and what not to talk about or shoot even how to talk. there are obvious things you DONT do just out of good ol' maturity , Sex, drugs , extreme acts of vulgar violence etc, But do we really expect to find much maturity in a game charged so full of youthfull hormones , especially in PVP settings? do not doubt that i realize what MMORPG stands for , but the bottom line is people wanna socialize and talking about things cheers people up and helps them escape just as much as rp'ing that your a goblin, and that is truelly what any and every multiplayer game is for , FUN , just a matter of how you find it and not ruining anyone else's in the process, ALAS we have all stepped into the age of MMOG not MMORPG.
playing eq2 and two worlds
First game that taught me that there was a huge upside to sitting in one spot camp grinding was CoH. The first MMO I played that did away with camping and downtime completely - and socializing went out the with it, like a baby with the bathwater. Not everyone cares, not everyone wants to be that social, but for me, its the only thing that sets MMOs above single-player games, which tend to be better in every other way. I miss sitting around with my group chatting, while we waited for the healer's mana or whatever. I complained about the absurdity of it at the time, but now I miss it.
Thinking about it recently, it occurred to me though, that it may just be another part of a greater social trend. An ever growing abhorrence for sitting still, and not being thoroughly distracted enough. Not going to get into that too much here, though. Talking about the good old days in EQ before any of its expansions makes me sound old enough as it is
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
"Here's a quest that you might want to do that provides a certain reward." The two are tied together, quest and reward. There are people who want the reward and are forced to do the quest. If it is a group quest then they are forced to group, do the quest and then get the reward. If they want the reward.
For people who don't care about rewards, sure, the obligation to do the quest is gone and choosing it or not choosing it is a more frivolous decision. For those intent on achieving specific goals, it's rather more involved.
Is that specific to the player? Sure. Is it a function of the game? Of course it is. It is the interaction of game and player. Players have things that they find entertaining, and they navigate the experience of an MMO in an attempt to find their particular brand of entertainment. A game that ties rewards to grouping or rewards to soloing or rewards to pretty much anything runs the risk of creating a link that annoys customers.
The 'forcing' comes from the tie between two experiences where a given player enjoys one experience but not the other. Having to PvE to gain levels before being able to PvP. Having to kill mushrooms or raise money before being able to craft a sword. These are system designs that tie one type of experience to another when they are not naturally related in the minds of some number of players. Games that tie experiences that are utterly unrelated fail. Games that tie experiences that are somewhat related collect a lot of criticism. Games that tie experiences that are naturally related tend to sneak past people's radar.
Games that tie intimate social connections to other players in order to pursue personal achievements are busted. That's why I suggest things like getting players to create loose social connections to pursue loose community achievements. It more properly aligns the experiences. The people who are inclined to pursue community achievements play the game, and forming loose social connections with others is a natural thing for them to do.
Game design is very definitely playing a role in people's perceptions of whether they are 'forced' into doing something. To suggest that players are somehow broken strikes me as a rather odd assertion.
P.S. Could folks stop quoting the entirety of prior posts - and prior post chains?
I hated quest always i loved back in the days to grind with a group only at one spot and not torun across half of the world for quests
[quote] The 'forcing' comes from the tie between two experiences where a given player enjoys one experience but not the other. Having to PvE to gain levels before being able to PvP. Having to kill mushrooms or raise money before being able to craft a sword. These are system designs that tie one type of experience to another when they are not naturally related in the minds of some number of players. Games that tie experiences that are utterly unrelated fail. Games that tie experiences that are somewhat related collect a lot of criticism. Games that tie experiences that are naturally related tend to sneak past people's radar.
[b]Games that tie intimate social connections to other players in order to pursue personal achievements are busted.[/b] That's why I suggest things like getting players to create loose social connections to pursue loose community achievements. It more properly aligns the experiences. The people who are inclined to pursue community achievements play the game, and forming loose social connections with others is a natural thing for them to do.
Game design is very definitely playing a role in people's perceptions of whether they are 'forced' into doing something. To suggest that players are somehow broken strikes me as a rather odd assertion. P.S. Could folks stop quoting the entirety of prior posts - and prior post chains? [/quote]
Very nicely said. Tieing things that are not closely related to each together creates a lof of friction. If that friction builds up, things break apart. I'll grind mobs for a while if doing that will let me progress in content I like. However, if I have to do it too long I will start to resent the activity that made me grind in the first place. So if you tie 'good' and 'bad' activites together the 'good' will become 'bad' by association. If someone who likes to craft but hates to raid has to raid in order to progress in creafting they will start hating crafting.
However, the other side of the coin is the 'work for your reward' concept. People like rewards and those are intimetly tied to the task one has to perform. So if someone really wants a reward but it is tied to a task they loathe to do then they will be disatisfied with the game. Of course if a game lets multiple progression paths achieve similar rewards then it is accused of being EZmode
It is interesting reading this thread and all the "Gimme that Old-Time Religion" laments of long-time MMOers. I can't remember his name but one guy a few pages back said something I agree with. The middle-game gameplay elements just ain't as fun as they could be. Not for him, not for me. We both see the potential. There are enough glimmers of it that it's what keeps us coming back. Intermittent reinforcement is a strong conditioner of repeat behavior. Animal trainers know it well and humans aren't immune from it.
Have any of you ever played Zone of the Enders 2? I'm replaying it again and it got me to thinking about what seems missing from so many of the MMOs I've tried. The gameplay in ZoE2 in and of itself for me is just incredibly fun. It reminds me of the intro...
Que VO: "The performance of these two bodies is even. But to match Anubis Jehuty lacks one thing...a program to bring out the full performance of Jehuty. That depends on the skill of the Runner.
Read: YOU...Your skill. Your tactics. Your strategies. All with the tools the developers gave you that make up the gameplay itself. At it's best when that happens max leveling whether fast or slow, getting to 'end game', etc concerns dissolve and the joy of playing is in the playing itself.
I have yet to find anything quite like it in any MMO. I think the closest I got was dueling against my BF in Hellgate London. Speaking of which...I forgot that game was technically an MMO. To me playing Hellgate was more like playing the multiplayer component of a single-player game (we're currently playing Titan Quest together). Maybe that's why I found it to be a heck of a lot more fun than any MMO I've played to date with the possible exception of Atlantica Online.
But to get back to what I was saying I agree with the guy a few pages back that for me often the gameplay mechanics are less than they could be. That's why quest grinding is just...well..another version of grinding. Pick your door...behind door number one we got singleplayer RPG random battles (ever see the threads on IGN griping about how devs really need to dump that mechanic?), Door number two gets you Old-Time Religion MMO Mob grinding and door number 3 is the baby of the bunch - quest grinding. But it's only a grind because so many perceive the gameplay mechanic as duller than it could be. The potential for gameplay in MMOs to be as exciting as what I find in Zone of the Enders 2 is there.
The industry just hasn't yet found the genius(s?) who will figure out how to deliver it to us while keeping the game fair and balanced for everyone. I still believe that it will happen someday.
I enjoy hunting contested nameds in an open world.
I enjoy kill my way through a zone with a chatty funny group.
I enjoy the lottery of loot dropping rather then having it handed to me by a Q giver.
I enjoy having different stuff to the guy next to me because they have taken a different path to me and not just the same Qs.
I enjoy seeing ultra rares, I don't us all to be winners. Having the risk of being the loser is fun.
BUT
I also enjoy having well written lore driven Qs that are challenging (vague clues, no mini-map objective markers, glowing trails, arrows). I don't mind having these Q givers marked with an icon above their head.
SO
Give me both. Give me the choice. It isnt hard to do.
The problem isnt having Qs in a game, EQ had them in the right amount imo, it is allowing them to dominate until we are all on the same treadmill (though on slightly different places).
THIS sounds utterly horrible. I can't imagine anyone paying for such an experience.
To the OP, I thought your post was good, and you had some very valid points. But I still think even crappy questing beats the scenario described above by JB47394. Beats it by FAR.
I agree just about completely with Josher's posts here. The choice in WoW and the games like it IS a real choice. The limitations being described to the contrary are largely fabrications of individual players' minds.
And the idea that a few people have posted that amounts to, "I want certain rewards but I don't want to have to do anything specific to earn them" is, well, just plain silly.
Originally posted by Wighty
It's like the latest batch of MMO's are like a f'n Kevin Costner movie... <think Waterworld, the Postman, etc> they cost a FORTUNE, they sound like they may be good but then you just realized you sat around for 3 hours of WTF...
OP,
I agree and have raised this topic up many times. I don't think people realize how trivial these things are that they're asked to do. How heroic do you feel after being told to deliver a Dear John letter from Suzy, or to kill 12 boars for their tusks, which takes 40 boars to actually get.
I actually love quests, but the whole idea of a quest for me is to do something important and epic. Those quests in MMORPG's are nothing more than chores and tasks. Things that even the local militia wouldn't even bother with.
The problem is that most people don't want to just explore the world, and those who do usually want to do it alone anyways. The only other method attempted for gaining experience has been random mob killing. In DAoC, this is how we leveled up, and I prefer it to questing, since it's a lot of fun pulling endless amount of monsters while getting to know the community you play with by chatting while you fight.
Alas, I cannot think of a solution for this.
I agree with the OP on all points.
DAoC had it just right for me. Indeed you could explore and farm mobs, and finding the right spot to do so was an art in itself. YOu had to take into consideration how many in your group, and what levels, and what gear, and match that to just the right spot to take on the baddest mobs you were capable of with that set up.
To really find out your potential, you had to keep upping the ante until sometimes you wiped the party, but that was fun too.
IN additition to this, you could also do some questing that required a good group, adn would get you some good loot, but, you didin't have to quest grind. The good long quests came along every few levels or so. Questing with a group can also be fun, if it's once in a while, not constant solo questing.
DAoC was my first game. I really enjoyed the Epic quests, which had different story lines depending on the class. You had 1 quest per 5 levels up until lvl 45, which is when all of the different stories came together for one group sized battle, rewarding you with unique looking armor w/ good stats on it. I really liked the ML's too.
I think DAoC took a turn for the worse with Catacombs. They implemented Instance Dungeons, and questing with that game. I quit Spring of 2005 after playing since summer of 2002. I moved to SWG at that time and that game was pretty group grinding centric too, which was fun, plus they had some really nice social features that DAoC didn't have.
And the idea that a few people have posted that amounts to, "I want certain rewards but I don't want to have to do anything specific to earn them" is, well, just plain silly.
Plain silly? Whats plan silly is saying WoW gives you choices. As long as you put in the time, you reach max level in WoW. PERIOD. You just march along the same path as everyone else that every played before you, doing the exact same quests as everyone else. Nothing can stop you, death is meanless. Exploreing what the NPCs tell you to explorer. Grouping when the NPCs tell you to group. Soloing the rest of the time.
Well, thats just plain silly.
Sooner or Later
I'm not sure if you've tried it, but Vanguard actually did a good job doing all the things you said should be done in a MMORPG. I recognized that, but I quit anyways for other reasons. It just didn't have the population, dev support, or a good company behind it.
LOL .. old days are WORSE. What is in EQ ... mob grinding .. i prefer quest grinding to that any day any time.
So your one of those people that want everything now without effort?
You have clearly never seen him post before have you?
Anyway, I'm totally with you OP. I HATE quest grinding. It's more boring than just grinding mobs, but you can't even socialize while you do it.
Give me good old fashion group grinding over the mindless quest grinding ANY day. Any day.
Yep, that's right.
Hey, I can remember bitching about mob grinding myself. I seem to recall comparing it to a slaughter house. But at least it could be social if you chose. And at least you had the freedom to just head off...oh, that-a-way...if you felt like it without feeling like you were going to fall behind on your tasks.
Ok, here's a little story from my early days in EQ that might shed some light on the difference as I see it.
Once upon a time I headed out into West Karana with a Barbarian Shaman. I did this for no particular reason other than to see what there was to see out there. So I was looking around, killing a few things as I went and then I saw a necro nearby. That was the first time I had seen a necromancer so I stopped to watch him for a bit. Then, out of curiousity I tried to cast a buff on his pet (I wasn't sure if I could).
Well that worked, so just for the heck of it I buffed his pet with everything I had. He thanked me and we got to talking and then one of us suggested that we could group for a while. So we did.
Pretty soon we ran across another guy and brought him into the group. So now there were three of us and we were doing pretty good. We each could have been soloing (especially the necro) but working together the experience was rolling in much faster. So for a week or two our little group in West Karana became a regular thing. We kept meeting out there to group and had a great time together.
And you know we had some real adventures in our time together because there was some high level stuff out there that we didn't know about untill we were running for our lives from it. We hunted together, explored together, and yes we even died together a time or two. When you get right down to it we were mostly just grinding mobs but at least we were doing it with other people which is much more fun.
Now, if EQ had been a quest grinding game you know what would have happened when that necro and my paths crossed that day? We would have run right past each other without even pausing because we each would have been hurrying along to complete some stupid "quest".
Look, I know that the old style mob grinding wasn't perfect but at least you could decide where you wanted to go, you didn't feel so rushed, and it made grouping much more likely and practical. Maybe we don't need to go back to that just exactly as it was but this quest grinding crap is just F-ing horrible.
I can give similar stories from DAoC. That's the thing about mob grinding; you have the flexibility to just let the wind take you where it wants. In DAoC, and probably EQ from how you make it sound, you discovered or stumbled upon dungeons. You weren't directed to them. People in dungeons did them for the sheer pleasure of doing them, and tried to get to the deepest depths of the dungeon to see what was there. The majority of the time you didn't get there, but it was a lot of fun trying.
I agree that the mob grinding was actually pretty damned boring, but truth be told I didn't mind it so much when I was in a good group, which was more often than not. It was easy to form groups in DAoC before Catacombs and we would explore all parts of the world. It really sucks nowadays running pass each other, too worried about turning in a quest to even recognized who you just passed.
I'm playing WAR right now, and it's actually pretty fun. I don't quest at all, nor feel the need to. I do PQ's, Scenarios, and ORvR for my xp, and every single one of those activities is group centric. Now only if the community actually did the dungeons that were available more, and were more active in the PQ's...