Camp grinding is like going to the local bar with your buddies to hang out for a while, shooting some pool.. The killing is just something to do that happens to advance you at the same time?
I agree with this and your previous post- although I can see the misunderstanding. It comes down to patience really, there are gamers that need to have a quick succession of accomplishments and no downtime or else the game is boring, then there are others that see those accomplishments that take time as being more worthwhile (to them). Not all games should target the entire array of gamers, and it is silly that they try.
The misunderstanding is actually in the other part of the issue that you are overlooking. I am one of the people who likes long-time accomplishments as more worthwhile but I simply do not consider leveling through 'camp grinding' as an 'accomplishment' or 'worthwhile'.
I meant misunderstanding regarding his wording, but anyway I can understand where you're coming from however how is camp grinding any less worthwhile than an overabundance of "quests" which are little more than chores (as another poster put it)? What if they combined both?
Would you be opposed to games that have quests where the majority required you to group and grind a certain type of mob? Because there are certainly games out- solo or group that pretty much require you to grind mobs either explicitly by kill x of x quests or by asking you to retrieve a very low drop quest item. It seems to me that the difference these days is that there are many more quests and that the majority of anything below level cap is completely soloable.
I, personally would enjoy having the choice of which type of gameplay I use to progress. Perhaps a system like LoTRO's taskboard quests combined with group grinds from EQ1- that way you could go to certain grind spots for instance the aviaks in South Karana and grind in a group if that's what you enjoy, and if you're given the task or offered a bounty of how many beaks they drop you can turn those in for faction points (or sell them to someone looking to up that faction). Just an example.
I'm not advocating one type of gameplay over another, but what I see in games I've played is that soloing and questing both are leaps and bounds more efficient in leveling to the point you'd be lucky in a western MMO to find players to group and grind with. Not because it isn't fun for those that enjoy it, but because players are punished by that type of play to the point they won't play that way.
If questing gave no experience for completion and only experience (in a level based game, of course) for the mob kills I'm sure you'd see a resurgence of mob grinding.
There should be a place for the nintendo gamer crowd (aka players of insta-gratification insta-action cutesy games), and there should be a place for the old school enjoy-the-trip-not-the-destination crowd.
Sorry but Nintendo games run a huge range. Please drop that Nintendo = kids crap before it completely derails this thread.
increase the AI of the mobs (which is possible 10 years later) and add some dynamic events and you dont need any questing anymore aside from a limited main-quest-line. such camps wouldnt be grinding, as they used to be in the old-games. even not after 8h of camping.
put that in a well designed sandbox and you got the perfect game. such simple
Originally posted by Effect Originally posted by randomtThere should be a place for the nintendo gamer crowd (aka players of insta-gratification insta-action cutesy games), and there should be a place for the old school enjoy-the-trip-not-the-destination crowd.
Sorry but Nintendo games run a huge range. Please drop that Nintendo = kids crap before it completely derails this thread.
LOL! Well in my defense, I did say Nintendo, not N64 or later.. But you have to admit that a majority of games on that console are of the cutesy cartoony variety heh.
I made a suggestion on the Rift beta forums about questing.
I would personally be happier to do 1 really involved quest/quest chain that in the end had me killing anywhere from 20-100+ mobs during that quest and getting a huge chunk of xp when done than having 15+ quests that are all the same stupid crap.
Grinding for xp isnt something that bothers me if say its on the move, grinding xp in the same exact spot on the same exact mob for countless hours made me wanna scalp myself.
If i have to spend hours and hours exploring and killing thats fine, but in one spot?
No.
3 years of my life, gawd i hate that game. Stupid friends.
Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief. Join me on TwitchFacebook Twitter
Originally posted by monstermmo I made a suggestion on the Rift beta forums about questing. I would personally be happier to do 1 really involved quest/quest chain that in the end had me killing anywhere from 20-100+ mobs during that quest and getting a huge chunk of xp when done than having 15+ quests that are all the same stupid crap.
Speaking of big quest chains, wasn't vanguard supposed to have some massive ones that'd take days of dungeon crawling with camp-out spots and stuff? Where those any good?
I actually have some fond memories of grinding in PreCU SWG. For instance, there was this player created Imperial Base on Dantooine on Lowca server that many of us would go to grind. It was just north of the main Imperial Base, which is where we would shuttle into, then either hoof it on foot or take our mounts a short ride to the base.
There were lots of mobs around the base, and we would draw the mobs to us and use the bases imperial troops to augment our fire power. It was a lot of fun and I met a lot of interesting characters there.
I actually have some fond memories of grinding in PreCU SWG. For instance, there was this player created Imperial Base on Dantooine on Lowca server that many of us would go to grind. It was just north of the main Imperial Base, which is where we would shuttle into, then either hoof it on foot or take our mounts a short ride to the base.
There were lots of mobs around the base, and we would draw the mobs to us and use the bases imperial troops to augment our fire power. It was a lot of fun and I met a lot of interesting characters there.
Remember the Hunting Groups in the deadlier places like Dathomir?
As far as the thread goes, Camping / setting up temporary rest spots was a part of the game. Your group could land on, say, Dathomir and work up and down the map killing and harvesting stuff from the NPCs (hides, meats, etc). Grinding was the route to take in Pre-CU/NGE SWG. You weren't rooted to one place to grind. You and your buddies could roam the countryside doing whatever. The system rewarded you specific XPs for successful actions of a particular skill (i.e. Rifle XPs with successful Blaster Rifle usage), not because of completing quests.
The funny thing I recall from those days and when taking those rests / camp sites was the social nature of the game. When people got back from their breaks, we would talk. Sometimes for a very long time.
Lots of cool characters back then. The game and community were very group oriented back in those days.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Man I forgot about Darthomir. Yeah we had some great groups there. Darthomir was nearly pitch black except for your little light, and we huddled together for protection, working our way deeper and deeper into the planets wilderness. The big yellow and black spiders scared the hell out of me at first. Later I went back and tamed a pair. We hunted the rancors, and fought constantly to just stay alive. I remember my repeated attempts to tame a baby rancor and almost dying many times.
Also had some good times on Yavin 4, Endor and Tatooine. Our group seemed to move to where ever there was the greatest challenge, or in some cases the highest quality meat, bone and hide for our crafting friends or to make a little cash.
I actually have some fond memories of grinding in PreCU SWG. For instance, there was this player created Imperial Base on Dantooine on Lowca server that many of us would go to grind. It was just north of the main Imperial Base, which is where we would shuttle into, then either hoof it on foot or take our mounts a short ride to the base.
There were lots of mobs around the base, and we would draw the mobs to us and use the bases imperial troops to augment our fire power. It was a lot of fun and I met a lot of interesting characters there.
Remember the Hunting Groups in the deadlier places like Dathomir?
As far as the thread goes, Camping / setting up temporary rest spots was a part of the game. Your group could land on, say, Dathomir and work up and down the map killing and harvesting stuff from the NPCs (hides, meats, etc). Grinding was the route to take in Pre-CU/NGE SWG. You weren't rooted to one place to grind. You and your buddies could roam the countryside doing whatever. The system rewarded you specific XPs for successful actions of a particular skill (i.e. Rifle XPs with successful Blaster Rifle usage), not because of completing quests.
The funny thing I recall from those days and when taking those rests / camp sites was the social nature of the game. When people got back from their breaks, we would talk. Sometimes for a very long time.
Lots of cool characters back then. The game and community were very group oriented back in those days.
Weren't those the days.. I remember the hunting trips for mats.. Our guild crafters would put in request and organize hunting nights.. Those were awesome.. Some nights we would just run missons out of the terminal for credits.. Other nights we would go raid a base for giggles.. When I played I was the master musican for the guild along with my stage.. Our guild was the city.. plus we had a few residents that lived in the city there we not part of the guild.. Those were the days..
Man I forgot about Darthomir. Yeah we had some great groups there. Darthomir was nearly pitch black except for your little light, and we huddled together for protection, working our way deeper and deeper into the planets wilderness. The big yellow and black spiders scared the hell out of me at first. Later I went back and tamed a pair. We hunted the rancors, and fought constantly to just stay alive. I remember my repeated attempts to tame a baby rancor and almost dying many times.
Also had some good times on Yavin 4, Endor and Tatooine. Our group seemed to move to where ever there was the greatest challenge, or in some cases the highest quality meat, bone and hide for our crafting friends or to make a little cash.
Exactly and never did we have to click on the icon bubble above a NPCs head to tell us what to do.. I was never able to get a Rancor.. I was only novice in CH so a Grul was a big as I could get.. and a pair of those large fast striking saber cats..
They had quite a few cool cats in SWG. I probably had all of them except the very rare ones at some point. Luckily the friends I tended to grind with were very patient with my creature handler character. I was always on the look out for little baby animals to adopt
They had quite a few cool cats in SWG. I probably had all of them except the very rare ones at some point. Luckily the friends I tended to grind with were very patient with my creature handler character. I was always on the look out for little baby animals to adopt
ahh cute.. one of my best friends was a bio engineer.. She loved the mechanics of making animals.. It was amazing.. She bacame so good at it, like most diehard Bio masters, she would get request after request for pets.. Now that was alot of fun.. Especially since I and my pet has to play distraction while she went and got bio samples.. lmaoo
Are you sure its not just the socializing that you miss rather than the actual camping? There is amazingly little downtime to socialize anymore these days.
I've always wondered why no one creates features for more social content. Even a simple strategic minigame in a tavern would create the right environment. Some spectator events would be nice. Politics would be good. Some incentives to interact and create friends are needed.
Yes ,when i played FFXi and i am going to be playing again,there is lots of time to socialize .The only player in the group pressed for time to type is the puller,to which i don't mind doing,but even then i always managed to type a bit while pulling mobs.I also like the slower paced combat,you have time to think and chat,you never feel like a 12 year old kid in the arcade button mashing for top score.
Then because the game is so stingy on gil[currency]you can spend most of your solo time crafting/farming.Unlike MOST games crafting/farming create a real positive for your player.You can farm to cook yourself extremely valuable food,unlike most games,FFXI's food is VERY important.If you are real ambitious ,and a player should be to give him/herself the best possible experience within a game.you can craft your own arrows if playing a Ranger or any other class that uses arrows/bolts.
So the game offers everything,the grouping aspect,time to chat/socialize the relaxed atmosphere of camping,rather than constantly running from quest to quest.Mind you every game is only as good as the players make it out to be,even in FFXI there are players who care nothing about the game but more so about how fast they can level or if the stat parser shows them to be the master dps player.
Like the OP said,questing does not allow for mentoring, since questing is pretty much all they do,they will have to either ALWAYS be on the same quest or solo,so socializing in those games was definitley not part of the design.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Just to weigh in on your question- increasing socialization was only a positive secondary aspect of the mechanic. My guess is it was used to artificially increase the time it took to level. The inconveniences that slowed leveling helped to expand the time content took to complete- not all gamers were in a hurry to get to cap then. It also did give more importance to classes other than just being tank, heals, or dps- buffing, debuffing, and CC were important roles that helped inspire interdependency of players. This again helped to develop the community as well as encourage players to play the role they desired rather than being shoehorned into the holy trinity.
Now, we get a child's version of these types of gameplay for players that have no patience, want to be rewarded for just logging in, and desire nothing more than a hack & slash game with a chat box.
Edit: fixed spelling
Thanks for weighing in and some good answers. I think big contributors to the social aspect of EQ was the common player demographic of your 20-30's tech savy former RPG players. The lack of spoiler sites and voice chat being large contributors as well, but many of eq's designs also supported more socializing on a large scale than current games.
What I don't agree with is the mentality of players not wanting to hurry to level cap or class dependancy. Prior to kunark, sure, but after that powerleveling, racing to "end game" was in full effect. That was the birthplace of those terms. Likewise I don't think there is any less dependance on tanks, CC, dps, healing, etc in current mmos. It's the same basic formula today as it was back then, but more classes can fill the required roles.
Mostly I agree that much of EQ was filled with time sinks to extend playtimes and thus subscription lengths and most of the benefits of it were an unintended side effect. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my years in EQ and it will always be one of my first loves, but it wasn't the pinnacle of mmo design. It isn't like EQ nailed perfect mmo design with the first 3d mmo to hit the market. Sitting around waiting for resources to return does not require skill and is just something most people consider boring.
I don't think that makes people who don't enjoy that children or ADD striken ninentdo players. That seems to be a common theme with most who favor old school time sink play as if it was something difficult to do.
I do not know if this has been said but EVERQUEST IS LAUNCHING A TIME LOCKED PROGRESSION SERVER IN Q1 2011!!!!!!
Proof. On the first page there is a link to a confirmation of time locked progression server and further along in the thread a dev actually stated Q1 2011 release date.
Originally posted by Limbless_k9 I do not know if this has been said but EVERQUEST IS LAUNCHING A TIME LOCKED PROGRESSION SERVER IN Q1 2011!!!!!!
Proof. On the first page there is a link to a confirmation of time locked progression server and further along in the thread a dev actually stated Q1 2011 release date. http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=171449 PS. I feel the same way as you. That is why i am so excited!!!!!!!!!!
The issues I had with the progression servers is that sooner or later some guild will burn through content just to open up all the expansions or to be the first. Even then the time between the expansions being trigger was always to short. Thus making a regular server. It always seemed SOE refused to just put a cap on an expansion. Like a pre-PoP server. No content above that but perhaps some of the new features or maybe not even though.
I do not know if this has been said but EVERQUEST IS LAUNCHING A TIME LOCKED PROGRESSION SERVER IN Q1 2011!!!!!!
Proof. On the first page there is a link to a confirmation of time locked progression server and further along in the thread a dev actually stated Q1 2011 release date.
PS. I feel the same way as you. That is why i am so excited!!!!!!!!!!
The issues I had with the progression servers is that sooner or later some guild will burn through content just to open up all the expansions or to be the first. Even then the time between the expansions being trigger was always to short. Thus making a regular server. It always seemed SOE refused to just put a cap on an expansion. Like a pre-PoP server. No content above that but perhaps some of the new features or maybe not even though.
These issues were commonly shared and expressed on the forums pretty much since the progression servers went up. That is why they are time locking this new one instead of having content getting unlocked after someone completes a requirement. No idea on how long each expansion is locked for but this will probably be the closest we get to a Pre (insert least favorite expansion here) server. I will definately be resubbing for this.
The time locked is a good idea in theory, but it will just recreate the issues of old. I played a bit on a server that went this same route and within a few weeks there were already to many people fighting over not enough content.
The fact that you enjoyed the sit in one spot and kill the same mob repeatedly for 8+ hours disgusts me.
There's so much you don't understand about why we enjoyed camping (not always in the same spot btw), the group dynamics, the social interaction, the laughs, the stories, I dare say we had a much better time playing than most players do today.
I wonder if there are any good camping games left out there, indy or otherwise?
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
The fact that you enjoyed the sit in one spot and kill the same mob repeatedly for 8+ hours disgusts me.
There's so much you don't understand about why we enjoyed camping (not always in the same spot btw), the group dynamics, the social interaction, the laughs, the stories, I dare say we had a much better time playing than most players do today.
I wonder if there are any good camping games left out there, indy or otherwise?
Adding to this, the inevitable zone wide shout, "Massive Train INC!" "RUN AWAY" especially while in dungeons, those were the days. Then some of the best social parts were when everyone teamed up to mass slaughter back to the corpses of those not quick enough...hehe~!
The fact that you enjoyed the sit in one spot and kill the same mob repeatedly for 8+ hours disgusts me.
There's so much you don't understand about why we enjoyed camping (not always in the same spot btw), the group dynamics, the social interaction, the laughs, the stories, I dare say we had a much better time playing than most players do today.
I wonder if there are any good camping games left out there, indy or otherwise?
Adding to this, the inevitable zone wide shout, "Massive Train INC!" "RUN AWAY" especially while in dungeons, those were the days. Then some of the best social parts were when everyone teamed up to mass slaughter back to the corpses of those not quick enough...hehe~!
You mean like when you and a bud are walking along and you see some guy run by and you're like...where the hell is he going in such a hurry? Then you turn around and your like.......oh shit....
Thanks for weighing in and some good answers. I think big contributors to the social aspect of EQ was the common player demographic of your 20-30's tech savy former RPG players. The lack of spoiler sites and voice chat being large contributors as well, but many of eq's designs also supported more socializing on a large scale than current games.
What I don't agree with is the mentality of players not wanting to hurry to level cap or class dependancy. Prior to kunark, sure, but after that powerleveling, racing to "end game" was in full effect. That was the birthplace of those terms. Likewise I don't think there is any less dependance on tanks, CC, dps, healing, etc in current mmos. It's the same basic formula today as it was back then, but more classes can fill the required roles.
Mostly I agree that much of EQ was filled with time sinks to extend playtimes and thus subscription lengths and most of the benefits of it were an unintended side effect. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my years in EQ and it will always be one of my first loves, but it wasn't the pinnacle of mmo design. It isn't like EQ nailed perfect mmo design with the first 3d mmo to hit the market. Sitting around waiting for resources to return does not require skill and is just something most people consider boring.
I don't think that makes people who don't enjoy that children or ADD striken ninentdo players. That seems to be a common theme with most who favor old school time sink play as if it was something difficult to do.
There are several aspects of gameplay that I didn't care about in EQ1- I did eventually leave the game after all, but the only thing that comes quickly to mind was the crafting. However, a lot of the underdeveloped mechanics did lead to a better community environment- along with having to share zones like PoF and PoH. I do think there's too much me me me mentality for that to ever work again though.
As far as racing to endgame- it wasn't much of a race because it took time to level and there wasn't much getting past that. I'll agree there was powerleveling and such but it seemed to me that players actually knew their classes by cap as well which we see is not the point these days.
The final line is where I really wanted to post- there's no denying that it was more difficult. Spoiler sites weren't as common, we didn't have VC, and grouping definitely made leveling faster due to limited mana as well as just synergy between multiple classes. Even soloing you have to be on your toes for mezzing, kiting, and such that were inherently more difficult than what we have today. That's just how it is. The big difference is, despite the difficulty people had more patience and that is in short supply, which is why I liken today's player to the console generation because everything has to be available right now or they get bored and cry about it on the forums. This is the exact population I don't want to game with, and when I compare them to ADHD sufferers or nintendo afficionados, or young children I say this because that's where I see the most impatient behavior.
Comments
Camp grinding is like going to the local bar with your buddies to hang out for a while, shooting some pool.. The killing is just something to do that happens to advance you at the same time?
There's one way to look at them
I meant misunderstanding regarding his wording, but anyway I can understand where you're coming from however how is camp grinding any less worthwhile than an overabundance of "quests" which are little more than chores (as another poster put it)? What if they combined both?
Would you be opposed to games that have quests where the majority required you to group and grind a certain type of mob? Because there are certainly games out- solo or group that pretty much require you to grind mobs either explicitly by kill x of x quests or by asking you to retrieve a very low drop quest item. It seems to me that the difference these days is that there are many more quests and that the majority of anything below level cap is completely soloable.
I, personally would enjoy having the choice of which type of gameplay I use to progress. Perhaps a system like LoTRO's taskboard quests combined with group grinds from EQ1- that way you could go to certain grind spots for instance the aviaks in South Karana and grind in a group if that's what you enjoy, and if you're given the task or offered a bounty of how many beaks they drop you can turn those in for faction points (or sell them to someone looking to up that faction). Just an example.
I'm not advocating one type of gameplay over another, but what I see in games I've played is that soloing and questing both are leaps and bounds more efficient in leveling to the point you'd be lucky in a western MMO to find players to group and grind with. Not because it isn't fun for those that enjoy it, but because players are punished by that type of play to the point they won't play that way.
If questing gave no experience for completion and only experience (in a level based game, of course) for the mob kills I'm sure you'd see a resurgence of mob grinding.
Sorry but Nintendo games run a huge range. Please drop that Nintendo = kids crap before it completely derails this thread.
increase the AI of the mobs (which is possible 10 years later) and add some dynamic events and you dont need any questing anymore aside from a limited main-quest-line. such camps wouldnt be grinding, as they used to be in the old-games. even not after 8h of camping.
put that in a well designed sandbox and you got the perfect game. such simple
played: Everquest I (6 years), EVE (3 years)
months: EQII, Vanguard, Siedler Online, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2
weeks: WoW, Shaiya, Darkfall, Florensia, Entropia, Aion, Lotro, Fallen Earth, Uncharted Waters
days: DDO, RoM, FFXIV, STO, Atlantica, PotBS, Maestia, WAR, AoC, Gods&Heroes, Cultures, RIFT, Forsaken World, Allodds
Sorry but Nintendo games run a huge range. Please drop that Nintendo = kids crap before it completely derails this thread.
LOL! Well in my defense, I did say Nintendo, not N64 or later.. But you have to admit that a majority of games on that console are of the cutesy cartoony variety heh.
I made a suggestion on the Rift beta forums about questing.
I would personally be happier to do 1 really involved quest/quest chain that in the end had me killing anywhere from 20-100+ mobs during that quest and getting a huge chunk of xp when done than having 15+ quests that are all the same stupid crap.
Grinding for xp isnt something that bothers me if say its on the move, grinding xp in the same exact spot on the same exact mob for countless hours made me wanna scalp myself.
If i have to spend hours and hours exploring and killing thats fine, but in one spot?
No.
3 years of my life, gawd i hate that game. Stupid friends.
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Speaking of big quest chains, wasn't vanguard supposed to have some massive ones that'd take days of dungeon crawling with camp-out spots and stuff? Where those any good?
I actually have some fond memories of grinding in PreCU SWG. For instance, there was this player created Imperial Base on Dantooine on Lowca server that many of us would go to grind. It was just north of the main Imperial Base, which is where we would shuttle into, then either hoof it on foot or take our mounts a short ride to the base.
There were lots of mobs around the base, and we would draw the mobs to us and use the bases imperial troops to augment our fire power. It was a lot of fun and I met a lot of interesting characters there.
Remember the Hunting Groups in the deadlier places like Dathomir?
As far as the thread goes, Camping / setting up temporary rest spots was a part of the game. Your group could land on, say, Dathomir and work up and down the map killing and harvesting stuff from the NPCs (hides, meats, etc). Grinding was the route to take in Pre-CU/NGE SWG. You weren't rooted to one place to grind. You and your buddies could roam the countryside doing whatever. The system rewarded you specific XPs for successful actions of a particular skill (i.e. Rifle XPs with successful Blaster Rifle usage), not because of completing quests.
The funny thing I recall from those days and when taking those rests / camp sites was the social nature of the game. When people got back from their breaks, we would talk. Sometimes for a very long time.
Lots of cool characters back then. The game and community were very group oriented back in those days.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Man I forgot about Darthomir. Yeah we had some great groups there. Darthomir was nearly pitch black except for your little light, and we huddled together for protection, working our way deeper and deeper into the planets wilderness. The big yellow and black spiders scared the hell out of me at first. Later I went back and tamed a pair. We hunted the rancors, and fought constantly to just stay alive. I remember my repeated attempts to tame a baby rancor and almost dying many times.
Also had some good times on Yavin 4, Endor and Tatooine. Our group seemed to move to where ever there was the greatest challenge, or in some cases the highest quality meat, bone and hide for our crafting friends or to make a little cash.
Weren't those the days.. I remember the hunting trips for mats.. Our guild crafters would put in request and organize hunting nights.. Those were awesome.. Some nights we would just run missons out of the terminal for credits.. Other nights we would go raid a base for giggles.. When I played I was the master musican for the guild along with my stage.. Our guild was the city.. plus we had a few residents that lived in the city there we not part of the guild.. Those were the days..
Exactly and never did we have to click on the icon bubble above a NPCs head to tell us what to do.. I was never able to get a Rancor.. I was only novice in CH so a Grul was a big as I could get.. and a pair of those large fast striking saber cats..
They had quite a few cool cats in SWG. I probably had all of them except the very rare ones at some point. Luckily the friends I tended to grind with were very patient with my creature handler character. I was always on the look out for little baby animals to adopt
ahh cute.. one of my best friends was a bio engineer.. She loved the mechanics of making animals.. It was amazing.. She bacame so good at it, like most diehard Bio masters, she would get request after request for pets.. Now that was alot of fun.. Especially since I and my pet has to play distraction while she went and got bio samples.. lmaoo
Yes ,when i played FFXi and i am going to be playing again,there is lots of time to socialize .The only player in the group pressed for time to type is the puller,to which i don't mind doing,but even then i always managed to type a bit while pulling mobs.I also like the slower paced combat,you have time to think and chat,you never feel like a 12 year old kid in the arcade button mashing for top score.
Then because the game is so stingy on gil[currency]you can spend most of your solo time crafting/farming.Unlike MOST games crafting/farming create a real positive for your player.You can farm to cook yourself extremely valuable food,unlike most games,FFXI's food is VERY important.If you are real ambitious ,and a player should be to give him/herself the best possible experience within a game.you can craft your own arrows if playing a Ranger or any other class that uses arrows/bolts.
So the game offers everything,the grouping aspect,time to chat/socialize the relaxed atmosphere of camping,rather than constantly running from quest to quest.Mind you every game is only as good as the players make it out to be,even in FFXI there are players who care nothing about the game but more so about how fast they can level or if the stat parser shows them to be the master dps player.
Like the OP said,questing does not allow for mentoring, since questing is pretty much all they do,they will have to either ALWAYS be on the same quest or solo,so socializing in those games was definitley not part of the design.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Thanks for weighing in and some good answers. I think big contributors to the social aspect of EQ was the common player demographic of your 20-30's tech savy former RPG players. The lack of spoiler sites and voice chat being large contributors as well, but many of eq's designs also supported more socializing on a large scale than current games.
What I don't agree with is the mentality of players not wanting to hurry to level cap or class dependancy. Prior to kunark, sure, but after that powerleveling, racing to "end game" was in full effect. That was the birthplace of those terms. Likewise I don't think there is any less dependance on tanks, CC, dps, healing, etc in current mmos. It's the same basic formula today as it was back then, but more classes can fill the required roles.
Mostly I agree that much of EQ was filled with time sinks to extend playtimes and thus subscription lengths and most of the benefits of it were an unintended side effect. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my years in EQ and it will always be one of my first loves, but it wasn't the pinnacle of mmo design. It isn't like EQ nailed perfect mmo design with the first 3d mmo to hit the market. Sitting around waiting for resources to return does not require skill and is just something most people consider boring.
I don't think that makes people who don't enjoy that children or ADD striken ninentdo players. That seems to be a common theme with most who favor old school time sink play as if it was something difficult to do.
I do not know if this has been said but EVERQUEST IS LAUNCHING A TIME LOCKED PROGRESSION SERVER IN Q1 2011!!!!!!
Proof. On the first page there is a link to a confirmation of time locked progression server and further along in the thread a dev actually stated Q1 2011 release date.
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=171449
PS. I feel the same way as you. That is why i am so excited!!!!!!!!!!
The issues I had with the progression servers is that sooner or later some guild will burn through content just to open up all the expansions or to be the first. Even then the time between the expansions being trigger was always to short. Thus making a regular server. It always seemed SOE refused to just put a cap on an expansion. Like a pre-PoP server. No content above that but perhaps some of the new features or maybe not even though.
These issues were commonly shared and expressed on the forums pretty much since the progression servers went up. That is why they are time locking this new one instead of having content getting unlocked after someone completes a requirement. No idea on how long each expansion is locked for but this will probably be the closest we get to a Pre (insert least favorite expansion here) server. I will definately be resubbing for this.
I wish they would do this with SWG
The time locked is a good idea in theory, but it will just recreate the issues of old. I played a bit on a server that went this same route and within a few weeks there were already to many people fighting over not enough content.
It will be good for nostalgia.
There's so much you don't understand about why we enjoyed camping (not always in the same spot btw), the group dynamics, the social interaction, the laughs, the stories, I dare say we had a much better time playing than most players do today.
I wonder if there are any good camping games left out there, indy or otherwise?
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Adding to this, the inevitable zone wide shout, "Massive Train INC!" "RUN AWAY" especially while in dungeons, those were the days. Then some of the best social parts were when everyone teamed up to mass slaughter back to the corpses of those not quick enough...hehe~!
You mean like when you and a bud are walking along and you see some guy run by and you're like...where the hell is he going in such a hurry? Then you turn around and your like.......oh shit....
There are several aspects of gameplay that I didn't care about in EQ1- I did eventually leave the game after all, but the only thing that comes quickly to mind was the crafting. However, a lot of the underdeveloped mechanics did lead to a better community environment- along with having to share zones like PoF and PoH. I do think there's too much me me me mentality for that to ever work again though.
As far as racing to endgame- it wasn't much of a race because it took time to level and there wasn't much getting past that. I'll agree there was powerleveling and such but it seemed to me that players actually knew their classes by cap as well which we see is not the point these days.
The final line is where I really wanted to post- there's no denying that it was more difficult. Spoiler sites weren't as common, we didn't have VC, and grouping definitely made leveling faster due to limited mana as well as just synergy between multiple classes. Even soloing you have to be on your toes for mezzing, kiting, and such that were inherently more difficult than what we have today. That's just how it is. The big difference is, despite the difficulty people had more patience and that is in short supply, which is why I liken today's player to the console generation because everything has to be available right now or they get bored and cry about it on the forums. This is the exact population I don't want to game with, and when I compare them to ADHD sufferers or nintendo afficionados, or young children I say this because that's where I see the most impatient behavior.