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When did it become a "grind"?
Arioc
Member Posts: 299
I recall back when UO and Meridian 59 were out, MMO's had that fresh new car smell and people had their imaginations sparked. Unaware of what technical limitations were present, they never knew if clicking on something would spark some epic event or unlock some secret hidden quest. People enjoyed the progression as their characters grew much like a classic D&D game where it's about the adventures you are on not getting to max level.
And at some point along the ride (probably before Kunark, or around that time I became aware of the new lingo being thrown around and people focusing on min/maxing more then discovery. DPS calculations, mana and regen became the focus and the game became less about discovery and exploration and focused more on end-game raid content).
Now I fully understand that the novelty of leveling and exploring is limited by it's very nature, and one cannot have a limitless world filled with interesting things to explore. But I definitely felt that after that milestone the focus became more of a rush to move past content to the next tier, next level, next epic.
Since then I've felt a steady trend of people to focus on end-game rather then the ride. Perhaps the ride is just too much of the same technology and design structure as what has been, but there's only so many ways to dress up a pig. There is the fed-ex quest, the kill count quest, the kill named quest, and gather quest. You can make a quest by inter-twining those with some scripted content , but it breaks down to those basic few.
As a developer I understand the technical and manpower limitations, and know that I want a sandbox MMO with AI, but I also want catered environments and heavy scripting and flavor in areas, not just a procedurally created world of endless forests filled with nothing or randomly spawned mobs.
Do you think games are just far more aware and educated about the limits of MMO design and see quests as "systems" rather then the lore wrapped around them? Is "slay the dark lord blahdeblah and his thrall of blood sworn ghouls" become "kill x named and return for epic sword, sweet"?
Opinions?
Arioc Murkwood
Environment Artist
Sad but true.
Comments
OP: Good post. I think the issues at hand here are all connected, but need to be broken down into little pieces and addressed individually over time. In my opinion, the current issues facing gamers and developers at the moment can simplified into two major concerns.
1) How to keep players perpetually entertained in a single game for prolonged periods of time.
2) How to create gameplay systems that better exploit the 'MMO' components of 'MMORPG's
I believe that both points can be addressed to a certain extent, by designing an environment that encourages player-driven entertainment. In my mind, MMORPGs are in extreme infancy because no developer has sufficiently capitalized on the potential of the multiplayer aspect of this genre.
An IRC chatroom can keep you perpetually entertained. There are no gameplay mechanics or systems involved, only the abstract mind-games of the people partaking in conversation. The "does he like me? does she like me?" drive of human nature is a compelling force that has not been sufficiently harnessed in multiplayer environments.
Point 2) is harder to address because the real world sucks as a template for games, yet gameplay systems often have to be finely tuned, thus predictable, to be enjoyable. I think addressing the problem of interesting game systems that don't suffer from repetition is a job of an artist, not an engineer. Good game design will come from talent and style, instead of technical prowess or debating on whether a level based system is better than a skill based system.
That said, I personally do not believe that 'sandbox' is the solution to the current stagnation of ideas. IRC is a sandbox, Roleplaying is sandbox, throwing in lots of virtual toys is not enough, you need FIXED, Goal-orientated mechanics too... just better integrated into the multiplayer environment.
In my opinion developers are still thinking in a single player mindset, yet the games with the best communities tend to have the worst gameplay mechanics, and vice versa. I do not believe that a compelling community and compelling game are mutually exclusive, and that the games that will eventually end the stagnation of the genre will be a successful fusion of the two.
Still waiting for your Holy Grail MMORPG? Interesting...
The issue is this.
Before you can return to the era of discovery, you have to bring a world that inspires interest. EQ etc were the first and therefore offered you a lot of wow this is cool.
But we've seen fantasy worlds, we've seen ruins and skeletons and zombies. We've seen mansions and elves. And we've read all the quests that repeat with flavor and name changes. We don't care if we find a hidden question or monster because it's the same as the other million only it's got a different name.
So how are we going to recapture it?
The answer is, we won't, and it will never come again. And sandbox games will fail and fail hard if they are how that group wants it.
In order for this to work, it has to be in a new setting, with a new way to present story, and interesting rewards and findings from exploring.
Fantasy exploration is dead, and is never coming back.
^^ A genre cannot die, there can be prolongued periods of stagnation, which is what I think you are trying to say, but eventually, something great will come along to revive it.
Still waiting for your Holy Grail MMORPG? Interesting...
When did it become a "grind"?
After you got bored.
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
UO was a grind.
/thread
It only becomes a grind to new MMO players after they hear someone else call it such.
it becomes a grind to everyone else on the forums after they have to repeat the same steps in the same way more than 5 times when those steps aren't the goal but rather the end result is.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
While I do think it should be the goal of every MMO to reduce grinding as much as possible, I also think it is impossible to eliminate it entirely. There are a limited number activities devs can program your character to participate in, fighting, crafting, exploring, etc. One on my favorite activities in an MMO is to explore the world in which my character interacts. I love it. The problem is, you can only make the world so big and therefore, exploration is inherently limited. And once a location has been discovered, it can't be rediscovered.
Crafting is fun for some, but it can be viewed as a grind as well. Doing the same activity over and over again to achieve a goal. So as long as there are MMOs, I think there is going to be a certain level of grinding. The best way to deal with it is to try to make it as fun as possible.
Origional by Bladin:
The issue is this.
Before you can return to the era of discovery, you have to bring a world that inspires interest. EQ etc were the first and therefore offered you a lot of wow this is cool.
But we've seen fantasy worlds, we've seen ruins and skeletons and zombies. We've seen mansions and elves. And we've read all the quests that repeat with flavor and name changes. We don't care if we find a hidden question or monster because it's the same as the other million only it's got a different name.
So how are we going to recapture it?
The answer is, we won't, and it will never come again. And sandbox games will fail and fail hard if they are how that group wants it.
In order for this to work, it has to be in a new setting, with a new way to present story, and interesting rewards and findings from exploring.
Fantasy exploration is dead, and is never coming back.
----------------------------------
Thanks for the replies both of you. I agree with Recant, that interesting content is crafted by good storytellers with interesting and novel twists. Creating advanced mechanics is only entertaining long enough untill that new mechanic becomes mundane. While environments too open can be just as boring. So what is the solution to revitalize the medium despite the genre, fantasy sci-fi or other. No matter the genre, the novel will become mundane over time.
Games like WoW provide a plethora of goals to keep the player hooked on the horse&carrot so that each time they log in they feel like they have many mini-goals to accomplish that can be done within what they feel is a reasonable play time. EQ2 provides many quests, but also many systems with layers to them. Working on collections grants you an item which unlocks new collections previously hidden with new rewards.
Collecting for the house you decorate. Completing quests, achieving AA, collecting items and quests.
Many of these advancement mechanics are shared among MMO's today, and to be honest I find the diversity of these advancement mechanics a good driving force to continue to grow my character. Once I've achieved max level and max talents/AA's all that's left is gear.
Games which are built with more interaction with the game world, the concept we called "World is Toy" on WoW tend to hide the basic systems better because they mix and match harvesting, clicking, moving, and changing the environment and your character. A strong game needs a flexible system to allow the quest designers to utilize these tools to better obfuscate the underlaying mechanics we've all become bored with. I think Recant said it best when he said we need artists to dress up the basic systems.
Art is just lines, shapes and colors. But how it's mixed is what creates intriguing illustrations, from stylized to realistic. Perhaps that's where the ball is being dropped, rather then create fewer quests that mix and match systems with scripted events to weave a story, we're given bite sized tastes of something.
Like tasting a sprinkle on a cupcake rather then the mix of frosting, sprinkle, and spongy cake. Just my 2 cents. I'm very happy to have received thought out answers.
Arioc Murkwood
Environment Artist
Sad but true.
The next big step is player created content.
The grind is a grind because no matter what you do, there are no results in the grand scheme of things beyond the accumulation of wealth and XP.
1) Every quest should change the world. Killing 5 bugs never seems to clear the farmer's field... Why can't I clear his field and my crafting buddy get a quest to help him plant next years crop? If he succeeds, awesome, if he doesn't, maybe the bugs come back and someone else has to help clear the field again ... The possibility of looping quests with variable results isn't TOO far fetched. And a large enough loop would create the illusion of uniqueness.
2) Every character level should be reliant on every other level. People want to get to the end game because you don't ever feel important until you are. One of the reasons I really enjoyed Galaxies was that you were important the very first day you stepped into the game. Every one had (or could pick) something that was handy even in a group of top leveled characters. And the social environment ... if you felt like hanging out and using a starwars themed chat room, the game could do that too.
You mentioned fantasy environments that do not exist. So, how about a real life MMO that is designed to be in our everyday world, but have the good elements from other environments intertwined?
You mentioned fantasy environments that do not exist. So, how about a real life MMO that is designed to be in our everyday world, but have the good elements from other environments intertwined?
That might work. I simply was implying that you can't shove the generic fantasy mmo world into peoples faces and expect them to explore it and enjoy it, enough for that aspect of the game to be a main selling point.
If anything, a sci fi mmorpg where you could travel from planet to planet similar to mass effect or spore(in how space is handled). And exploring worlds
1) Because quests need to be written by developers. Scripting NPC responces, balancing, and establishign rewards for quests beyond kill 10 beetles takes time. Sometimes all day or days depending on the tools. If every quest was completed once and never used again then you'd all the content expired in a matter of weeks.
2) Give me an example please of a class or ability that was desired from day one even amid seasoned players? I wasnt' there to experience it so I'd like to know what they did that allowed top level players and noobies to group. Without a sense of progression and character growth, how do you feel you've accomplished anything if you do the same at level 1 as at level 20?
Arioc Murkwood
Environment Artist
Sad but true.
Apparently when it becomes boring it becomes a grind.
If I were given a dollar for each time someone said how bored they are in WoW then I would be a millionaire.
I mean if they are being so bored playing it then why don't they just simply log off?
And people rushing to the max level and not paying attention to the story of the game just destroys it for themselves.
You can hear them whine later on the forums when they have hit max level and didn't grasp much about the story of the game how boring the game has become.
I never really understood it myself what is so wonderful about being the max level but maybe they are mostly interested in the endgame raiding but I have heard too many stories to count about raiding guilds splitting up or getting destroyed because of their members greed or they just simply became fed up with it all.
the first time u sigh in front of the monitor, it became a grind. you will probably quit a week after depending on how bored you got. tho the grind is seriously not a big problem if its regulated, and not grind all the time. maybe they shud put sumthing interesting to look forward to so that the grind doesnt realy become the grind
When I hold my guitar, I become a different person.
if it takes you more than 8 hrs to level without any significant questing, then i call it a grind. i usually quit a week after a grind. though i think quests even before have been systems, its just that ppl dont look at it that way. thats why its called roleplay.
Don't believe in anything that you see the first time.