I mean if you play a cards you always play the same game and for hours on end. There's no gear progression playing poker. You play it because it's fun!
Horrible logic.
Guess what, people like to build ships in bottles, or put together 10000 piece puzzles.
Hell, Cricket games can last multiple DAYS
Not everything is about instant gratification. Cards may be about each individual hand, but there are tons of other fun things that people do that are about the process.
This is something that children have difficulty understanding, work now, reward later. If you give a child a dollar and tell him if he waits a week to spend it you'll give him 10 dollars, but if he spends it today thats all he gets, the kid will spend the dollar the same day.
Now, does that mean that games with instant gratification have no place? no. What we're pissed is that people who enjoy those games are ruining our games by trying to turn them into their games.
Anyways, ive bitched about this endlessly and im not gonna get workedup over it again, so ill stop here
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Originally posted by jusomdude Yeah I also mentioned SWTOR, but it doesn't matter, any thread to criticise GW2 in any form, even if it's not the main point of the post is destined to turn into a GW2 battle to the death.
Just because one feature provides an option to spacebar or not be gear centric doesn't make it nothing like or less than an RPG. You still have the focus on character development and advancement.
I have read many of your post, you just hate video games! They;re never good enough or cool enough for you!
Originally posted by Aerowyn I find this to be odd since you speak out against the one game lately that is trying to put the RPG back in MMOs by making the game about the journey about the exploration.. also with GW2 gear is far from on its way out...
I just don't see what GW2 is really doing that is so great for the MMORPG. They let you run old content, That's great. I can go back and explore in any MMO I play.
The problem is there's not an infinite amount of interesting locations to visit, not in GW2, or any game. I'm guessing I could explore the full GW2 maps in less than a month, perhaps only a few weeks.
GW2 is doing an awsome job of belittling gear. Why should I go looking for loot when I can compete with my lvl 1 rusty dagger?
No company has the money to do that.
Well it actually could be done with procedural/randomized generation.
Or even player made locations... many possiblilities.
Ah but the keyword you used here was INTERESTING locations.
Procedural locations may be random but they will never be more interesting than a crafted level.
The majority of player generated content is usually bad. Only the most dedicated will make good content.
Play for fun. Play to win. Play for perfection. Play with friends. Play in another world. Why do you play?
I mean if you play a cards you always play the same game and for hours on end. There's no gear progression playing poker. You play it because it's fun!
Horrible logic.
Guess what, people like to build ships in bottles, or put together 10000 piece puzzles.
Hell, Cricket games can last multiple DAYS
Not everything is about instant gratification. Cards may be about each individual hand, but there are tons of other fun things that people do that are about the process.
This is something that children have difficulty understanding, work now, reward later. If you give a child a dollar and tell him if he waits a week to spend it you'll give him 10 dollars, but if he spends it today thats all he gets, the kid will spend the dollar the same day.
Now, does that mean that games with instant gratification have no place? no. What we're pissed is that people who enjoy those games are ruining our games by trying to turn them into their games.
Anyways, ive bitched about this endlessly and im not gonna get workedup over it again, so ill stop here
Well stated Hrimnir and it echoes my sentiments exactly.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
Originally posted by Aerowyn I find this to be odd since you speak out against the one game lately that is trying to put the RPG back in MMOs by making the game about the journey about the exploration.. also with GW2 gear is far from on its way out...
I just don't see what GW2 is really doing that is so great for the MMORPG. They let you run old content, That's great. I can go back and explore in any MMO I play.
The problem is there's not an infinite amount of interesting locations to visit, not in GW2, or any game. I'm guessing I could explore the full GW2 maps in less than a month, perhaps only a few weeks.
GW2 is doing an awsome job of belittling gear. Why should I go looking for loot when I can compete with my lvl 1 rusty dagger?
No company has the money to do that.
Well it actually could be done with procedural/randomized generation.
Or even player made locations... many possiblilities.
Ah but the keyword you used here was INTERESTING locations.
Procedural locations may be random but they will never be more interesting than a crafted level.
The majority of player generated content is usually bad. Only the most dedicated will make good content.
Depending on how skilled the programmers are, procedural locations can be made very interesting.
Also, just a random little shack in the middle of nowhere placed by a player is more interesting than a few a frickin shrubs.
2. Open World Player Made Citys / Housing (Political System)
3. Player run Stores (Auction Houses owned by individuals)
4. Dropable Harvestors and Random Mining Locations that change.
5. A Seamless Open World without Restrictions
We will always have what we got now, a MMO without the RPG in it.
sounds like Archage is exactly the game you are looking for.
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
2. Open World Player Made Citys / Housing (Political System)
3. Player run Stores (Auction Houses owned by individuals)
4. Dropable Harvestors and Random Mining Locations that change.
5. A Seamless Open World without Restrictions
We will always have what we got now, a MMO without the RPG in it.
Sad that until Blizzard decides to make a sandbox, there probably won't be any quality ones worth playing. Not saying Blizzard is the ultimate developer, just think they are the only ones that could make sandboxes mainstream, in which case they would probably turn to shit anyways. We're kinda in a lose lose situation here.
gee, only 3 posts in and we start talking about gw2....sad.
It's been that way for months, on every thread on every topic. The comments in this thread don't derail the topic much, but you are correct, it is sad and very annoying.
I'll be glad then GW2 launches and everyone will be having so much fun playing that they won't have time to post about it anymore.
OP, I agree with your topic and points. The best part is it doesn't matter if we discuss sandbox or themepark games, your points are valid.
OP, you misunderstand the term "grind" and its relationship to character progression. These two terms are independant of each other. The means by which you progress your character can be grindy or not.
The word "grindy" as pertaining to video games arose to describe games that force players to repeat one action so frequently that it eventually becomes extremely boring and tedious. If you played WoW, killing Booty Bay guards for 5 hours a day for a month to increase your Bloodsail Buccaneer reputation or farming furbolgs in Felwood for weeks to get Timbermaw rep was grindy. Every leveling party in FFXI ever was grindy in nature: stand still and kill mobs over and over again using the same few skills.
Grind = boring, repetitive gameplay. Or rather, the gameplay can even be fun for a while, but because you're forced to repeat that one thing over and over and over again, it becomes boring. That's a grind.
Character progression is simply the game's system of advancing your characters and earning rewards; and any game, grindy or not, can have an awesome character progression system. It's true that grindy games tend to rely on awesome character progression. The prospect of awesome rewards is the only reason most players could possibly justify playing through such awful gameplay.
Good progression also does not have to rely on a grind to make the rewards feel worthwhile. "Hardcore" rewards could require a lot of skill to obtain, or they can still require a LOT of time and dedication and just not be based on one repetitive gameplay mode.
You feel companies are removing more and more "Mechanics-Participation" from the games than was previously required, be it longer to level, scarcer resources, however. Whatever people had to do to progress, which they did, took longer back then than it did now.
Part of that is games streamlining things.
Sure, UO/EQ were successful, but the length or repetitiveness of the activities used to advance weren't explicitly the reason people were playing them. Evidenced as when things were more streamlined, or in some cases made outright easier, people flocked to those options, and more new players joined in. The market grew.
Not to say the old games did anything explicitly wrong, but for their era, they did things differently. Hell, even look at D&D, Shadowrun, or most other PnP system. Over time, things are revised, pre-concived notions are challenged, and game universes evolve.
Sometimes it was to grow a brand, sometimes to save it, but when those core tabletop RPG/Wargaming experiences that served as the foundations for pretty much every "Insert-prefix"-RPG evolve, it means the evolutionary steps branching from it will evolve as well.
When MMO's first were starting, real-time response wasn't viable. The internet wasn't fast enough, computers not powerful enough, and server architecture not developed enough. Slowly over time, things became less and less fragmented, broken up by load screens or artificial delays.
The faster, more powerful, and more developed each side became, the more intricate and detailed the games got. Jumping from UO's graphics to EQ's was a monumental step. When WoW launched, it was 2 massive continents, where instead of loading region to region, you just loaded continent to continent.
Now we're reaching the next big gap. Games like TERA, AoC, Fallen Earth try advancing their combat schemes by making things more reactive and user-skill based rather than system-skills based. While games like Planetside and AC started pioneering towards this, they were just before the grand broadband proliferation of the early 00's.
What we're really running into now is a new seperation of the playerbase. Some people want systems to drive actions, while others what direct input to determine results.
It's the difference between Borderlands and Fallout 3. The emergent games are starting to take on a Borderlands feel, where the action is streamlined into real-time entirely. Others still want the more traditional, Fallout 3-esque pacing where they can be managing inventory or type-chatting with friends all while fighting at a slower pace.
And this is finally starting to hit the MMO space in force. Granted, this will most likely lead to more MMOFPS-RPG's, than MMORPG-FPS', but it's here. SP games like the STALKER franchise, Far Cry 2 and Deus Ex:HR showed the recent audiences what an RPG-infused games can bring to the table.
Fast forward to today, where DayZ announced 1 million unique players since launch. Planetside 2 is in beta, the makers of STALKER are working on an F2P-MMOFPS, The War Z, and whatever Zombie Labs' Class 4 becomes. None of these games are possible without heavy influences of the real foundations of RPGs, but none of these would be as compelling if they were dictated by older progression mentalities.
Now we use physics instead of a weapon-damage table. A persons reflex and reaction speed instead of a pair of invisible D10. So many of the things RPG's had to create stats and systems to account for IRL are now being retro-graded back into a simulation.
Think to tabletop, where a single round of combat is supposed to be roughly 2-3sec of real-time, which in a group of 4-5 players + GM, would usually take 10-15min IRL to resolve unless the group ran like clockwork. Now, when all those numbers, which often were bland table references than really "fun numbers", are processed on the server, real-time doesn't take 5min/sec to translate.
Now, that 2-3sec can take place in 2-3sec, or even 4-6sec, but at its core, orders of magnitude faster than people have been accustomed to. Hell, old CRPGs were all turnbased, and as much as people will swear they didn't, when the game allowed, you were saving every 2min and loading back up the minute something went wrong. People didn't just roll with the punches, even "back then".
The choices are made in real-time, the consequences in real-time. Hell, even part of the reason solo-content is prominent. With real-time, depending on the games tuning, a single mistake will be far more noticiable. What used to be a 5-10sec reaction window is now just as long as the boss-warning is on screen, or until the spell-bar finishes casting.
TLDR Version:
Repetition of gameplay wasn't the explicit reason any old MMO was successful.
Real-time gameplay has and still is drastically changing the gameplay potential in the MMO landscape.
None of this is actually bad. Games need to evolve.
If there was ever the mythical "One Game That Everyone Actually Likes And Plays", it'd be a sign of calamity more than success.
Lets Push Things Forward
I knew I would live to design games at age 7, issue 5 of Nintendo Power.
Support games with subs when you believe in their potential, even in spite of their flaws.
I agree to an extent. Vertical gear-progression and vertical level scaling are just worse designs compared to horizontal gear progression and horizontal level scaling. They do not add to the RPG for me.
The things that add the RPG factor for me is exploration (no corridors and quest hubs) and depth of systems. By depth of systems I mean added immersion to out of combat activity. Crafting is a good example. In so many games today crafting is done at a UI window only. One offender of this is GW2; although the dev team made several improvements to crafting with accelerating item creation and made sure crafted items are good-looking and useful, the system still lacks RPG depth. That's because my character stands there while I play MS excel in order to craft. No animations what-so-ever.
Another example would be how housing is handled. For the record, I have no problem with instanced housing. My problem is understanding why players can't build their homes from the ground up. Instead we're thrown a couple models or some empty room and told to "decorate". This approach removes any attachment I could have to my home and no amount of home buffs makes me want to visit it often if at all. Why not incorporate housing building materials into the crafting? Wood workers make wooden home panels and furniture and accessory makers can produce light fixtures and windows etc. Sure each of these is an illusion as the designs are pre-created by the development team but they make me feel more in control and more immersed in the game world. Moreover, this makes the community more interactive, it interconnects several parts of the game all of which add RPG depth.
Those are just a couple examples of how I think MMOs are losing the RPG factor. Idk why fans have to beg for these little things that came standard back in the days.
2. Open World Player Made Citys / Housing (Political System)
3. Player run Stores (Auction Houses owned by individuals)
4. Dropable Harvestors and Random Mining Locations that change.
5. A Seamless Open World without Restrictions
We will always have what we got now, a MMO without the RPG in it.
I really do like these 5 statements, and do remember some MMORPGs trying or doing 1 or more (or something similar) of them. I would like to see more MMOs with limitless possibilities where the world could be created, developed, added to, and ran by both player and developer content in the open world. Not just limited to player instanced housing.
1. Player Made Content
I would actually like to see developers working more with the player base in adding content. There are a lot of player-based ideas, that have proven to be more successful than paid developers' ideas (DLC in many games from 3rd party sites).
2. Open World Player Made Citys / Housing (Political System)
Would love to see this actually work without expoits. I remember AO had something similar to this.
3. Player run Stores (Auction Houses owned by individuals)
I remember EQ1 had the bazaar, where the player's character became a store.
4. Dropable Harvestors and Random Mining Locations that change.
Could list quite a few games that have random harvest nodes. Or are you talking about event harvesting, like they had in RF Online, but more locations?
5. A Seamless Open World without Restrictions
Not sure if anything can match an endless world except real life, lol.
The only game that I think meets all this criteria is Second Life, if you wish to call that an MMO or not.
MMO's are made to be played for many hours, more than any other genre. Not talking about one sitting, just over the game's lifespan.
The thing is, there can only be so many things to do as core gameplay, not talking about 10 minute mini games and what have you. So any type of gameplay inevitably becomes "grinding." The question is, do you want to be rewarded for that grinding or not? The only way to make it not feel like grinding is to make it fun, and that's the challenge.. how the hell do you make something infinitely fun? Seems impossible.
If I'm meant to be playing a game for years, I want to be advancing my character in some form that actually has a noticable effect. Titles, achievements, these things are useless to me, and I don't care if they're in the game or not. If I'm not gaining power, I feel like I'm not progressing, then I lose interest in the game.
A game that focuses on pvp without room for advancement might as well be a street fighter game, or an early years fps. I got all the tools and moves, now I just fight for the hell of it. Fleeting fun at best.
GW2 does not do away with character progression and such they simply put a limit on it, something that does exist in all(most?) SP RPGs.
I enjoy character progression, but I don't enjoy having to spend hours upon hours doing the same raid or BG over and over and over just to "keep up" forever and ever. Taking a 3 month break only to find your top of the food chain guy is now pretty much at the bottom cause everyone is sporting those 500+ dmg weapons when you only have 400+ kinda sucks. But hey, it keeps the subs rolling I suppose.
Originally posted by jusomdude MMO's are made to be played for many hours, more than any other genre. Not talking about one sitting, just over the game's lifespan.The thing is, there can only be so many things to do as core gameplay, not talking about 10 minute mini games and what have you. So any type of gameplay inevitably becomes "grinding." The question is, do you want to be rewarded for that grinding or not? The only way to make it not feel like grinding is to make it fun, and that's the challenge.. how the hell do you make something infinitely fun? Seems impossible.If I'm meant to be playing a game for years, I want to be advancing my character in some form that actually has a noticable effect. Titles, achievements, these things are useless to me, and I don't care if they're in the game or not. If I'm not gaining power, I feel like I'm not progressing, then I lose interest in the game. A game that focuses on pvp without room for advancement might as well be a street fighter game, or an early years fps. I got all the tools and moves, now I just fight for the hell of it. Fleeting fun at best.
Heres a story from niths mystical story book..
When i was a "young lad" in the 90's i used to play final fantasy 7 ALOT. I must of ground materia in that fucking northern crater for over 100 hours because my clock eventually reset (clock goes to 100 hours then back to 0)
Now, at the time the reward was worth it, and i had a lot time to waste so it was ok. But that sort of grinding doesn't fly with the generation of today because i believe:
1.there has been a massive social shift from how rpgs are perceived. 2.The people playing rpg's these days arnt really rpg fans, they are fps fans and others
With mmorpgs, true rpg fans respect and understand the statistical nature of the games with stats and gear and currency. They should also expect some kind of "grind" because when time is assigned to a task(character progression) its inevitable there will be "grind".
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
"True RPG fans" isn't something anyone can actually wave around, it's more a cheap way of trying to say "only people who think X way are right".
Who's to say a True RPG Fan doesn't appreciate all of the changes, seeing something they've know for years evolve and grow over time.
As to the "Grind", what's changed the most is the actual "Unit of Progression", how often and how long the player makes any progression.
And for calling it "Grind", more games are stating to grant progression for more activities. Years ago, harvesting materials would only ever increase a specific crafting skill, and not an overall character level gain, and now new games will tout when you can progress start to max level purely by crafting.
In the end, it's about creating the idea of "Fun" for as many people as possible. Yes, the paradigm has shifted, the mass market digs RPG's now, in many shapes an sizes.
No, that's not a bad thing, they're not "bad" or "fake" RPG fans, and no one's doing it "wrong", they're just having the options to choose how to find that "Fun".
Plus, fusion of genres is a good thing, especially through the history of RPGs. RPGs fused with Strategy games to make Tactical RPGs, RPGs and Gauntlet fused to make Action-RPGs, MUDs and Ultima were fused for Ultima Online, MUDs and Might+Magic got us EQ.
Hell, even RPG's and Racing games started getting fused with Gran Turismo on PS1, evolving in the modern racing game career mode. Not to mention the Zelda's, Metroidvania's, Deus Ex/System Shocks.
"Fun" can be found in numerous places in a variety of ways. It can be crafted from unexpected combinations and genuine divergence from the beaten path. It doesn't always have to be found where people haven't looked before, but it always has the chance of being found where people aren't looking.
Lets Push Things Forward
I knew I would live to design games at age 7, issue 5 of Nintendo Power.
Support games with subs when you believe in their potential, even in spite of their flaws.
Originally posted by jusomdude MMO's are made to be played for many hours, more than any other genre. Not talking about one sitting, just over the game's lifespan.
The thing is, there can only be so many things to do as core gameplay, not talking about 10 minute mini games and what have you. So any type of gameplay inevitably becomes "grinding." The question is, do you want to be rewarded for that grinding or not? The only way to make it not feel like grinding is to make it fun, and that's the challenge.. how the hell do you make something infinitely fun? Seems impossible.
If I'm meant to be playing a game for years, I want to be advancing my character in some form that actually has a noticable effect. Titles, achievements, these things are useless to me, and I don't care if they're in the game or not. If I'm not gaining power, I feel like I'm not progressing, then I lose interest in the game.
A game that focuses on pvp without room for advancement might as well be a street fighter game, or an early years fps. I got all the tools and moves, now I just fight for the hell of it. Fleeting fun at best.
Heres a story from niths mystical story book..
When i was a "young lad" in the 90's i used to play final fantasy 7 ALOT. I must of ground materia in that fucking northern crater for over 100 hours because my clock eventually reset (clock goes to 100 hours then back to 0)
Now, at the time the reward was worth it, and i had a lot time to waste so it was ok. But that sort of grinding doesn't fly with the generation of today because i believe:
1.there has been a massive social shift from how rpgs are perceived. 2.The people playing rpg's these days arnt really rpg fans, they are fps fans and others
With mmorpgs, true rpg fans respect and understand the statistical nature of the games with stats and gear and currency. They should also expect some kind of "grind" because when time is assigned to a task(character progression) its inevitable there will be "grind".
This is meant as a response to both of you. Also, if you haven't, please read my independent post above as much of what I would say here was already written there.
I think you're missing a very important 3rd reason, Nitth. Many players have simply "seen the light" and now know that they can still have awesome character progression but without the grind. Games can still feature compelling character advancement systems and tons of rewards that make players feel all special and great when earned while being fun throughout the entire process by never resorting to one repetitive gameplay mechanism. So in this respect, I completely disagree with the assertion that every MMO or RPG must become grindy at some point if it is to have good character progression.
Now I'm right there with you on classic RPGs and grinding. I have done what I would today define as grind for hours upon hours upon days in every single one of the Final Fantasy games. I've duplicated Mime three times in FF7; I've used the Card ability on every single encounter in FF8 to intentionally keep my character levels below 10 until the end of disk 3 so I could then get a Rosetta Stone + Cactuar GF and proceed to level 1 character at a time (killing off the other 2) from 10-100 with str/vit/mag/spr Plus junctioned so I could maxiimze my potential stats during endgame; I've gotten 3 characters with full Sphere Grid clears in FF10; I've bothered to build my characters up and tediously kill Yiazmat in FF12. I've grinded the shit out of so many games in the past.
And I consider character progression to be my absolute favorite aspect of RPGs.
The problem I have with grinds today is that, in their own right, they're simply not fun. By definition they are boring. Perhaps it is a bit of modern ADD culture, but I simply couldn't do what I did back then today. Or if I did, I would have to also be reading a book or watching a movie or browsing facebook or whatever--because that's what most grinds are: brainless, monotonous, repetiive work that can be done while you're 85% afk. And that's just not fun.
I think most of the fun of the FF grinds I described was derived from the strategy involved in planning out those character progression goals and then eventually seeing them come to fruition. They usually led to incredibly overpowered characters, which is of course only a relative experience drawing comparisons to earlier fights against the same enemies. The computer could come up with bigger badder mobs that simply decimate me all over again, but that's neither here nor there. Within the single player game, your characters are now king. But anyone who has bothered to grind this much in single player games also knows how trivial and unfun this makes the rest of the game (not that there's usually any game left after all that.) Challenge and in the moment strategy disappears.
Notice how both of these scenarios pose major problems for MMOs. Imagine the who feels the inclination to do the insane FF-comparable grind does so and becomes ridiculously godlike compared to players who just wish to play the game normally. Such imbalance isn't fun for either player and isn't healthy for the game. And when such ridiculous power plateaus exist in MMOs and all the content becomes relatively trivial, does that not also become unfun? Now I'm going to use two games as examples here, and I know people like to recoil when either of these games are mentioned, so brace yourselves. The first is WoW simply because it's a common denominator that most can relate to. How much fun do you think players have raiding Molten Core today compared to in 2005? Sure, occasionally players probably dive in there, but mostly for nostalgia's sake. Once the thirst for nostalgia has been quenched, they likely become bored and leave. And this happens fast. WoW's tiered progression and ever increasing level and stat cap is the most quintessential example of RPG stat godliness.
Now for comparison, I offer you--wait for it--GW2. Now this is speculation and the future absolutely remains to be seen, but I know of no other game that features a similar level-down system. (Some main campaign parts of FFXI required obligatory downleveling, and the same points apply.) 8 years from now, GW2 veterans will still be able to return to the classic original dungeons, still be challenged, and still earn rewards that are relevant to their current progression. Meanwhile, they do continue to progress slightly in stats (and believe me, if you played FFXI you'd know just how much players are willing to do for ONE stat point in the min/maxing world); they do earn karma and gold extra skill points and crafting materials, all which translate into slightly better stats on new transmutated gear and a more flexible character setup. Now to assume any more about the state of GW2 progression 8 years from now would only be to assert wild guesses. But the reality 8 years from now is irrelevant. You can see the ideal I'm trying to depict.
And here I shall stop before this wall of text becomes unreadable. I don't expect this to be the end of this conversation. I myself see open counter arguments I have yet to address and which I won't just yet. I'll allow the conversation to continue first, hopefully politely
MMO's are made to be played for many hours, more than any other genre. Not talking about one sitting, just over the game's lifespan.
The thing is, there can only be so many things to do as core gameplay, not talking about 10 minute mini games and what have you. So any type of gameplay inevitably becomes "grinding." The question is, do you want to be rewarded for that grinding or not? The only way to make it not feel like grinding is to make it fun, and that's the challenge.. how the hell do you make something infinitely fun? Seems impossible.
If I'm meant to be playing a game for years, I want to be advancing my character in some form that actually has a noticable effect. Titles, achievements, these things are useless to me, and I don't care if they're in the game or not. If I'm not gaining power, I feel like I'm not progressing, then I lose interest in the game.
This assumption needs to be re-examined. I would much rather have a really fun 4 weeks, than a year of so-so gaming.
Story. If you're skipping cutscenes in ToR, then you are skipping cutscenes. This doesn't mean story is on the way out. It means you are choosing to skip the story.
Advancement (levels/loot). Er, what MMORPG is remotely close to removing this as an element? Certainly not GW2 where there's at least a good amount of content to advance through. And if their PVE dead-ends in super easy best-in-slot gear, then I would agree that's going to kill the game rather quickly. But GW2 is one game. In the rest advancement remains strong.
As for grind? "Grind" is a player's way of saying "this is overly repetitive and/or uninteresting". There are two completely viable solutions: remove the grind, or make things more interesting. Players complaining of grind is certainly a problem but it doesn't mean devs are automatically going to remove that grind (or at least they shouldn't always.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Story. If you're skipping cutscenes in ToR, then you are skipping cutscenes. This doesn't mean story is on the way out. It means you are choosing to skip the story.
Advancement (levels/loot). Er, what MMORPG is remotely close to removing this as an element? Certainly not GW2 where there's at least a good amount of content to advance through. And if their PVE dead-ends in super easy best-in-slot gear, then I would agree that's going to kill the game rather quickly. But GW2 is one game. In the rest advancement remains strong.
As for grind? "Grind" is a player's way of saying "this is overly repetitive and/or uninteresting". There are two completely viable solutions: remove the grind, or make things more interesting. Players complaining of grind is certainly a problem but it doesn't mean devs are automatically going to remove that grind (or at least they shouldn't always.)
How would you propose developers remove grind... impossible unless there is an infinite amount ways to play mechanics.
No, not even GW2 is gonna be without grind, to think otherwise is fooling yourself. Just because the content is "still relevant" means nothing. People will be repeating stuff, while fun drains some amount with every repeat.
BTW, I didn't skip anything I didn't already hear in SWTOR, but ask your average SWTOR player what they did. Guessing that's why they lost so many subs.
Also ask your average player... meaning non forum visitor if they skip quest text in other games.
Comments
Horrible logic.
Guess what, people like to build ships in bottles, or put together 10000 piece puzzles.
Hell, Cricket games can last multiple DAYS
Not everything is about instant gratification. Cards may be about each individual hand, but there are tons of other fun things that people do that are about the process.
This is something that children have difficulty understanding, work now, reward later. If you give a child a dollar and tell him if he waits a week to spend it you'll give him 10 dollars, but if he spends it today thats all he gets, the kid will spend the dollar the same day.
Now, does that mean that games with instant gratification have no place? no. What we're pissed is that people who enjoy those games are ruining our games by trying to turn them into their games.
Anyways, ive bitched about this endlessly and im not gonna get workedup over it again, so ill stop here
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Just because one feature provides an option to spacebar or not be gear centric doesn't make it nothing like or less than an RPG. You still have the focus on character development and advancement.
I have read many of your post, you just hate video games! They;re never good enough or cool enough for you!
Ah but the keyword you used here was INTERESTING locations.
Procedural locations may be random but they will never be more interesting than a crafted level.
The majority of player generated content is usually bad. Only the most dedicated will make good content.
Play for fun. Play to win. Play for perfection. Play with friends. Play in another world. Why do you play?
Well stated Hrimnir and it echoes my sentiments exactly.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
--- First of all, get rid of Player Levels ---
Until the day comes when a MMORPG puts in
1. Player Made Content
2. Open World Player Made Citys / Housing (Political System)
3. Player run Stores (Auction Houses owned by individuals)
4. Dropable Harvestors and Random Mining Locations that change.
5. A Seamless Open World without Restrictions
We will always have what we got now, a MMO without the RPG in it.
Depending on how skilled the programmers are, procedural locations can be made very interesting.
Also, just a random little shack in the middle of nowhere placed by a player is more interesting than a few a frickin shrubs.
sounds like Archage is exactly the game you are looking for.
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
W.I.S.H. FUCK, I HATE THEY CANCELLED IT!! Would have been the best sandbox ever. I shit you not. It had everything you posted.
I went to look up the project that was trying to revive it. My old thread is still there
http://www.projectwish.com/index.php?showtopic=536
BOOYAKA!
Sad that until Blizzard decides to make a sandbox, there probably won't be any quality ones worth playing. Not saying Blizzard is the ultimate developer, just think they are the only ones that could make sandboxes mainstream, in which case they would probably turn to shit anyways. We're kinda in a lose lose situation here.
Do you even know the definition of RPG? Or is that also player made?
It's been that way for months, on every thread on every topic. The comments in this thread don't derail the topic much, but you are correct, it is sad and very annoying.
I'll be glad then GW2 launches and everyone will be having so much fun playing that they won't have time to post about it anymore.
OP, I agree with your topic and points. The best part is it doesn't matter if we discuss sandbox or themepark games, your points are valid.
OP, you misunderstand the term "grind" and its relationship to character progression. These two terms are independant of each other. The means by which you progress your character can be grindy or not.
The word "grindy" as pertaining to video games arose to describe games that force players to repeat one action so frequently that it eventually becomes extremely boring and tedious. If you played WoW, killing Booty Bay guards for 5 hours a day for a month to increase your Bloodsail Buccaneer reputation or farming furbolgs in Felwood for weeks to get Timbermaw rep was grindy. Every leveling party in FFXI ever was grindy in nature: stand still and kill mobs over and over again using the same few skills.
Grind = boring, repetitive gameplay. Or rather, the gameplay can even be fun for a while, but because you're forced to repeat that one thing over and over and over again, it becomes boring. That's a grind.
Character progression is simply the game's system of advancing your characters and earning rewards; and any game, grindy or not, can have an awesome character progression system. It's true that grindy games tend to rely on awesome character progression. The prospect of awesome rewards is the only reason most players could possibly justify playing through such awful gameplay.
Good progression also does not have to rely on a grind to make the rewards feel worthwhile. "Hardcore" rewards could require a lot of skill to obtain, or they can still require a LOT of time and dedication and just not be based on one repetitive gameplay mode.
So cutting to your actual complaint, OP...
You feel companies are removing more and more "Mechanics-Participation" from the games than was previously required, be it longer to level, scarcer resources, however. Whatever people had to do to progress, which they did, took longer back then than it did now.
Part of that is games streamlining things.
Sure, UO/EQ were successful, but the length or repetitiveness of the activities used to advance weren't explicitly the reason people were playing them. Evidenced as when things were more streamlined, or in some cases made outright easier, people flocked to those options, and more new players joined in. The market grew.
Not to say the old games did anything explicitly wrong, but for their era, they did things differently. Hell, even look at D&D, Shadowrun, or most other PnP system. Over time, things are revised, pre-concived notions are challenged, and game universes evolve.
Sometimes it was to grow a brand, sometimes to save it, but when those core tabletop RPG/Wargaming experiences that served as the foundations for pretty much every "Insert-prefix"-RPG evolve, it means the evolutionary steps branching from it will evolve as well.
When MMO's first were starting, real-time response wasn't viable. The internet wasn't fast enough, computers not powerful enough, and server architecture not developed enough. Slowly over time, things became less and less fragmented, broken up by load screens or artificial delays.
The faster, more powerful, and more developed each side became, the more intricate and detailed the games got. Jumping from UO's graphics to EQ's was a monumental step. When WoW launched, it was 2 massive continents, where instead of loading region to region, you just loaded continent to continent.
Now we're reaching the next big gap. Games like TERA, AoC, Fallen Earth try advancing their combat schemes by making things more reactive and user-skill based rather than system-skills based. While games like Planetside and AC started pioneering towards this, they were just before the grand broadband proliferation of the early 00's.
What we're really running into now is a new seperation of the playerbase. Some people want systems to drive actions, while others what direct input to determine results.
It's the difference between Borderlands and Fallout 3. The emergent games are starting to take on a Borderlands feel, where the action is streamlined into real-time entirely. Others still want the more traditional, Fallout 3-esque pacing where they can be managing inventory or type-chatting with friends all while fighting at a slower pace.
And this is finally starting to hit the MMO space in force. Granted, this will most likely lead to more MMOFPS-RPG's, than MMORPG-FPS', but it's here. SP games like the STALKER franchise, Far Cry 2 and Deus Ex:HR showed the recent audiences what an RPG-infused games can bring to the table.
Fast forward to today, where DayZ announced 1 million unique players since launch. Planetside 2 is in beta, the makers of STALKER are working on an F2P-MMOFPS, The War Z, and whatever Zombie Labs' Class 4 becomes. None of these games are possible without heavy influences of the real foundations of RPGs, but none of these would be as compelling if they were dictated by older progression mentalities.
Now we use physics instead of a weapon-damage table. A persons reflex and reaction speed instead of a pair of invisible D10. So many of the things RPG's had to create stats and systems to account for IRL are now being retro-graded back into a simulation.
Think to tabletop, where a single round of combat is supposed to be roughly 2-3sec of real-time, which in a group of 4-5 players + GM, would usually take 10-15min IRL to resolve unless the group ran like clockwork. Now, when all those numbers, which often were bland table references than really "fun numbers", are processed on the server, real-time doesn't take 5min/sec to translate.
Now, that 2-3sec can take place in 2-3sec, or even 4-6sec, but at its core, orders of magnitude faster than people have been accustomed to. Hell, old CRPGs were all turnbased, and as much as people will swear they didn't, when the game allowed, you were saving every 2min and loading back up the minute something went wrong. People didn't just roll with the punches, even "back then".
The choices are made in real-time, the consequences in real-time. Hell, even part of the reason solo-content is prominent. With real-time, depending on the games tuning, a single mistake will be far more noticiable. What used to be a 5-10sec reaction window is now just as long as the boss-warning is on screen, or until the spell-bar finishes casting.
TLDR Version:
Repetition of gameplay wasn't the explicit reason any old MMO was successful.
Real-time gameplay has and still is drastically changing the gameplay potential in the MMO landscape.
None of this is actually bad. Games need to evolve.
If there was ever the mythical "One Game That Everyone Actually Likes And Plays", it'd be a sign of calamity more than success.
Lets Push Things Forward
I knew I would live to design games at age 7, issue 5 of Nintendo Power.
Support games with subs when you believe in their potential, even in spite of their flaws.
I agree to an extent. Vertical gear-progression and vertical level scaling are just worse designs compared to horizontal gear progression and horizontal level scaling. They do not add to the RPG for me.
The things that add the RPG factor for me is exploration (no corridors and quest hubs) and depth of systems. By depth of systems I mean added immersion to out of combat activity. Crafting is a good example. In so many games today crafting is done at a UI window only. One offender of this is GW2; although the dev team made several improvements to crafting with accelerating item creation and made sure crafted items are good-looking and useful, the system still lacks RPG depth. That's because my character stands there while I play MS excel in order to craft. No animations what-so-ever.
Another example would be how housing is handled. For the record, I have no problem with instanced housing. My problem is understanding why players can't build their homes from the ground up. Instead we're thrown a couple models or some empty room and told to "decorate". This approach removes any attachment I could have to my home and no amount of home buffs makes me want to visit it often if at all. Why not incorporate housing building materials into the crafting? Wood workers make wooden home panels and furniture and accessory makers can produce light fixtures and windows etc. Sure each of these is an illusion as the designs are pre-created by the development team but they make me feel more in control and more immersed in the game world. Moreover, this makes the community more interactive, it interconnects several parts of the game all of which add RPG depth.
Those are just a couple examples of how I think MMOs are losing the RPG factor. Idk why fans have to beg for these little things that came standard back in the days.
I really do like these 5 statements, and do remember some MMORPGs trying or doing 1 or more (or something similar) of them. I would like to see more MMOs with limitless possibilities where the world could be created, developed, added to, and ran by both player and developer content in the open world. Not just limited to player instanced housing.
1. Player Made Content
I would actually like to see developers working more with the player base in adding content. There are a lot of player-based ideas, that have proven to be more successful than paid developers' ideas (DLC in many games from 3rd party sites).
2. Open World Player Made Citys / Housing (Political System)
Would love to see this actually work without expoits. I remember AO had something similar to this.
3. Player run Stores (Auction Houses owned by individuals)
I remember EQ1 had the bazaar, where the player's character became a store.
4. Dropable Harvestors and Random Mining Locations that change.
Could list quite a few games that have random harvest nodes. Or are you talking about event harvesting, like they had in RF Online, but more locations?
5. A Seamless Open World without Restrictions
Not sure if anything can match an endless world except real life, lol.
The only game that I think meets all this criteria is Second Life, if you wish to call that an MMO or not.
MMO's are made to be played for many hours, more than any other genre. Not talking about one sitting, just over the game's lifespan.
The thing is, there can only be so many things to do as core gameplay, not talking about 10 minute mini games and what have you. So any type of gameplay inevitably becomes "grinding." The question is, do you want to be rewarded for that grinding or not? The only way to make it not feel like grinding is to make it fun, and that's the challenge.. how the hell do you make something infinitely fun? Seems impossible.
If I'm meant to be playing a game for years, I want to be advancing my character in some form that actually has a noticable effect. Titles, achievements, these things are useless to me, and I don't care if they're in the game or not. If I'm not gaining power, I feel like I'm not progressing, then I lose interest in the game.
A game that focuses on pvp without room for advancement might as well be a street fighter game, or an early years fps. I got all the tools and moves, now I just fight for the hell of it. Fleeting fun at best.
GW2 does not do away with character progression and such they simply put a limit on it, something that does exist in all(most?) SP RPGs.
I enjoy character progression, but I don't enjoy having to spend hours upon hours doing the same raid or BG over and over and over just to "keep up" forever and ever. Taking a 3 month break only to find your top of the food chain guy is now pretty much at the bottom cause everyone is sporting those 500+ dmg weapons when you only have 400+ kinda sucks. But hey, it keeps the subs rolling I suppose.
Heres a story from niths mystical story book..
When i was a "young lad" in the 90's i used to play final fantasy 7 ALOT. I must of ground materia in that fucking northern crater for over 100 hours because my clock eventually reset (clock goes to 100 hours then back to 0)
Now, at the time the reward was worth it, and i had a lot time to waste so it was ok. But that sort of grinding doesn't fly with the generation of today because i believe:
1.there has been a massive social shift from how rpgs are perceived.
2.The people playing rpg's these days arnt really rpg fans, they are fps fans and others
With mmorpgs, true rpg fans respect and understand the statistical nature of the games with stats and gear and currency. They should also expect some kind of "grind" because when time is assigned to a task(character progression) its inevitable there will be "grind".
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
"True RPG fans" isn't something anyone can actually wave around, it's more a cheap way of trying to say "only people who think X way are right".
Who's to say a True RPG Fan doesn't appreciate all of the changes, seeing something they've know for years evolve and grow over time.
As to the "Grind", what's changed the most is the actual "Unit of Progression", how often and how long the player makes any progression.
And for calling it "Grind", more games are stating to grant progression for more activities. Years ago, harvesting materials would only ever increase a specific crafting skill, and not an overall character level gain, and now new games will tout when you can progress start to max level purely by crafting.
In the end, it's about creating the idea of "Fun" for as many people as possible. Yes, the paradigm has shifted, the mass market digs RPG's now, in many shapes an sizes.
No, that's not a bad thing, they're not "bad" or "fake" RPG fans, and no one's doing it "wrong", they're just having the options to choose how to find that "Fun".
Plus, fusion of genres is a good thing, especially through the history of RPGs. RPGs fused with Strategy games to make Tactical RPGs, RPGs and Gauntlet fused to make Action-RPGs, MUDs and Ultima were fused for Ultima Online, MUDs and Might+Magic got us EQ.
Hell, even RPG's and Racing games started getting fused with Gran Turismo on PS1, evolving in the modern racing game career mode. Not to mention the Zelda's, Metroidvania's, Deus Ex/System Shocks.
"Fun" can be found in numerous places in a variety of ways. It can be crafted from unexpected combinations and genuine divergence from the beaten path. It doesn't always have to be found where people haven't looked before, but it always has the chance of being found where people aren't looking.
Lets Push Things Forward
I knew I would live to design games at age 7, issue 5 of Nintendo Power.
Support games with subs when you believe in their potential, even in spite of their flaws.
This is meant as a response to both of you. Also, if you haven't, please read my independent post above as much of what I would say here was already written there.
I think you're missing a very important 3rd reason, Nitth. Many players have simply "seen the light" and now know that they can still have awesome character progression but without the grind. Games can still feature compelling character advancement systems and tons of rewards that make players feel all special and great when earned while being fun throughout the entire process by never resorting to one repetitive gameplay mechanism. So in this respect, I completely disagree with the assertion that every MMO or RPG must become grindy at some point if it is to have good character progression.
Now I'm right there with you on classic RPGs and grinding. I have done what I would today define as grind for hours upon hours upon days in every single one of the Final Fantasy games. I've duplicated Mime three times in FF7; I've used the Card ability on every single encounter in FF8 to intentionally keep my character levels below 10 until the end of disk 3 so I could then get a Rosetta Stone + Cactuar GF and proceed to level 1 character at a time (killing off the other 2) from 10-100 with str/vit/mag/spr Plus junctioned so I could maxiimze my potential stats during endgame; I've gotten 3 characters with full Sphere Grid clears in FF10; I've bothered to build my characters up and tediously kill Yiazmat in FF12. I've grinded the shit out of so many games in the past.
And I consider character progression to be my absolute favorite aspect of RPGs.
The problem I have with grinds today is that, in their own right, they're simply not fun. By definition they are boring. Perhaps it is a bit of modern ADD culture, but I simply couldn't do what I did back then today. Or if I did, I would have to also be reading a book or watching a movie or browsing facebook or whatever--because that's what most grinds are: brainless, monotonous, repetiive work that can be done while you're 85% afk. And that's just not fun.
I think most of the fun of the FF grinds I described was derived from the strategy involved in planning out those character progression goals and then eventually seeing them come to fruition. They usually led to incredibly overpowered characters, which is of course only a relative experience drawing comparisons to earlier fights against the same enemies. The computer could come up with bigger badder mobs that simply decimate me all over again, but that's neither here nor there. Within the single player game, your characters are now king. But anyone who has bothered to grind this much in single player games also knows how trivial and unfun this makes the rest of the game (not that there's usually any game left after all that.) Challenge and in the moment strategy disappears.
Notice how both of these scenarios pose major problems for MMOs. Imagine the who feels the inclination to do the insane FF-comparable grind does so and becomes ridiculously godlike compared to players who just wish to play the game normally. Such imbalance isn't fun for either player and isn't healthy for the game. And when such ridiculous power plateaus exist in MMOs and all the content becomes relatively trivial, does that not also become unfun? Now I'm going to use two games as examples here, and I know people like to recoil when either of these games are mentioned, so brace yourselves. The first is WoW simply because it's a common denominator that most can relate to. How much fun do you think players have raiding Molten Core today compared to in 2005? Sure, occasionally players probably dive in there, but mostly for nostalgia's sake. Once the thirst for nostalgia has been quenched, they likely become bored and leave. And this happens fast. WoW's tiered progression and ever increasing level and stat cap is the most quintessential example of RPG stat godliness.
Now for comparison, I offer you--wait for it--GW2. Now this is speculation and the future absolutely remains to be seen, but I know of no other game that features a similar level-down system. (Some main campaign parts of FFXI required obligatory downleveling, and the same points apply.) 8 years from now, GW2 veterans will still be able to return to the classic original dungeons, still be challenged, and still earn rewards that are relevant to their current progression. Meanwhile, they do continue to progress slightly in stats (and believe me, if you played FFXI you'd know just how much players are willing to do for ONE stat point in the min/maxing world); they do earn karma and gold extra skill points and crafting materials, all which translate into slightly better stats on new transmutated gear and a more flexible character setup. Now to assume any more about the state of GW2 progression 8 years from now would only be to assert wild guesses. But the reality 8 years from now is irrelevant. You can see the ideal I'm trying to depict.
And here I shall stop before this wall of text becomes unreadable. I don't expect this to be the end of this conversation. I myself see open counter arguments I have yet to address and which I won't just yet. I'll allow the conversation to continue first, hopefully politely
So we won't have RPG in your definition, so what.
1. most player made content is crap. I would much rather play professional produced content
2. Don't need it to have fun
3. Why? AH works fine now.
4. No argument with this one.
5. That depends on whethere there is LFD tools, fast travel and other assessible features
This assumption needs to be re-examined. I would much rather have a really fun 4 weeks, than a year of so-so gaming.
OP your argument makes no sense.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
How would you propose developers remove grind... impossible unless there is an infinite amount ways to play mechanics.
No, not even GW2 is gonna be without grind, to think otherwise is fooling yourself. Just because the content is "still relevant" means nothing. People will be repeating stuff, while fun drains some amount with every repeat.
BTW, I didn't skip anything I didn't already hear in SWTOR, but ask your average SWTOR player what they did. Guessing that's why they lost so many subs.
Also ask your average player... meaning non forum visitor if they skip quest text in other games.