In WOW I'm constantly alternating between getting quests and doing quests, and a non-trivial portion of those quests aren't kill quests (even though the majority are.) In Aion quests are rare, and I'm filling in large chunks of leveling by grinding repetitively against the same mobs. The grind wasn't overly terrible (apart from struggling with the very terrible camera), due to my character's optimal ability rotation varying slightly with each pull depending on which cooldowns were up. But a grind's a grind, and repetition wears out very quickly in games. I gave it up at level 26.
How is getting quest in any alternating the gameplay? You enter a town, speak to everybody with a question mark above his head and then perform the quests one by one. How is that different from Aion?
Let's divide gameplay up into 15-minute numbered "chunks". In WOW, my gameplay is:
1. Get quests
2. Kill stuff
3. Turn in/get quests
4. Kill stuff
5. Turn in/get quests
6. Kill stuff
7. Turn in/get quests
In Aion my gameplay is:
1. Get quests
2. Kill stuff
3. Turn in
4. Kill stuff
5. Kill stuff
6. Kill stuff
7. Kill stuff
Notice how one is distinctly more repetitive than the other?
Well yeah but a big majorit of the time spend in Aion is also spend on quests.
Also, Why would you play that way in number 1? If you invested in enough bag space, it's more accurate like this:
Get quests
Kill stuff until all quests are completed, return to town if your bag happens to be full
Go back to quest giver hub and give in quests
Get the next round of quests.
The only difference I see is that for some reason you run back to the quest giver after finishing every single quest.
How is getting quest in any alternating the gameplay? You enter a town, speak to everybody with a question mark above his head and then perform the quests one by one. How is that different from Aion?
I haven't played Aion yet (beyond the first few levels) so I won't comment on it, but in regards to alternating gameplay in WoW, I'll give you a list of the quests that are currently in my journal as I level my Paladin in WoW.
1. Go to location, disturb a next, kill a huge eagle that turns up to protect it. Harvest it's eyes, use a magical disguise to turn into a wolf and go take the eagle eyes to the alpha wolf in the area.
2. Kill boars and harvest 6 x meat to feed some walrus guys.
3. Go talk to a goblin.
4. Kill 16 undead of various types around a town overrun by scourge forces.
5. Locate and kill some scourge warlocks, collect their magical devices and use them to zap to death some sleeping giants before they wake up.
6. Locate and kill the necromancer controlling said scourge forces.
7. Locate and kill a dragonmaster to obtain his summoning horn; use it to call down his huge skeletal dragon (which I can already see flying around up there) and kill it.
Yes, most of the quests have a common theme (kill stuff) but there is a lot of variety there. Far more so than standing in one place and repeatedly killing something in order to make ones XP bar go up.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
How is getting quest in any alternating the gameplay? You enter a town, speak to everybody with a question mark above his head and then perform the quests one by one. How is that different from Aion?
I haven't played Aion yet (beyond the first few levels) so I won't comment on it, but in regards to alternating gameplay in WoW, I'll give you a list of the quests that are currently in my journal as I level my Paladin in WoW.
1. Go to location, disturb a next, kill a huge eagle that turns up to protect it. Harvest it's eyes, use a magical disguise to turn into a wolf and go take the eagle eyes to the alpha wolf in the area.
2. Kill boars and harvest 6 x meat to feed some walrus guys.
3. Go talk to a goblin.
4. Kill 16 undead of various types around a town overrun by scourge forces.
5. Locate and kill some scourge warlocks, collect their magical devices and use them to zap to death some sleeping giants before they wake up.
6. Locate and kill the necromancer controlling said scourge forces.
7. Locate and kill a dragonmaster to obtain his summoning horn; use it to call down his huge skeletal dragon (which I can already see flying around up there) and kill it.
Yes, most of the quests have a common theme (kill stuff) but there is a lot of variety there. Far more so than standing in one place and repeatedly killing something in order to make ones XP bar go up.
I don't see why you have the impression that in AION you will just stand in one place and repeatedly kill something in order to make ones XP bar go up.
In AION there are a ton of kill quests, crafting quests, lore related quests and PVP quests. If you know where to look and if you do group questing you will not need to to "stand in one place and repeatedly kill something in order to make ones XP bar go up."
Group questing and hunting gives a huge amount of XP.
Leveling in AION IS slower than WoW, a bit more similar to the early days of Everquest 2 some people will call it "grind" (just keep in mind it will be quest grind, especially group oriented) some people will like it.
Edit- AION leveling and PvP is much, much more enjoyable in groups, people who want to reach end game fast alone or be a loner avenger in PVP will have hard times.
I think this sums it up nicely. Pros and cons are the way to go. People have very greyscale interests in games. For example: Grinding <---> Questing
Set Skill Tree <---> Classless Progression
Open World <---> Linear
PvP <---> PvE
Party <---> Solo So if I'm 70% Grinding and 30% Questing I will probably feel that Aion has enough quests. If I'm 90% Questing and 10% Grinding, I'll probably balk at having to grind. Or, if I'm playing FFXI and I'm 50% Solo, 50% Party, I'll probably be more upset about FFXI's party system than somebody who is 15% Solo and 85% Party.
Not a bad idea. But I am not sure if questing really is the opposite of grinding, because many games have almost only "Go kill X mobs" quests, and they are as boring grind as just killing random mobs, or actually worse since youll have to run and make a turnin every 20 mobs or so. And daily quests are a total grind.
But this is actually something in the right direction, and with a little work it could be made into a great review system.
I don't think most people are actually lying, they are not seeing the bad things. It's like being in love, you just don't see many of your lovers bad sides.
If we want a fair system for judging game we need to base them on facts.
The best way to determine the grind factor would be to count the number of mobs (same level) you need to kill to go from one level to another, and the level of non violent quests (also same level). And this is actually something the devs should go out with.
There is probably a perfect number, too few and youll level past the whole game in hours and too many and the game will be an awful grind.
It already failed, they only sold 300k copies and many players left because of the queues.
Add in the hacking.
Add in the gold selling.
Add in the HUGE grind.
In 2 months from now the game will be sub 100k players.
Then it can join failures like AoC, Warhammer, Vanguard, EQ2.
The only MMO topping 100k with ease are WoW, LOTRO and Guild Wars atm. No game has managed to outdo WoW or come even close. Not only is that depressing, it was the developer's own damn fault every time.
SoE are greedy bastards, NCsoft let their servers get hacked and botted each time, Funcom doesn't have a clue what it's doing.
Is it any wonder that WoW dominates when it has 0 competition.
I've bought a lot of music that I ended up disliking, and I've watched a lot of movies that I wished I could have gotten a refund afterward; all just based on other people's personal preference that I should have read into in their reviews. Entertainment is universally expensive in modern society, and it has caught up the the MMO universe.
I've come to accept the genre for what it is now days.. You see a game that is interesting, you choose to pay for the software, use your months trial, and decide from there. Hopefully the game is good enough to get a month of play out of it, but I'm tired of being upset from buying into the hype on gaming forums. Developers often don't listen or don't care, and I see the same mistakes being repeated over and over by nearly every company putting out new games, so this is just my philosophy to cope with the current state of online gaming.
Gamers reach their saturation point rather quickly, and I think a lot of people still have this web 1.0 mind-frame that online entertainment should either be utterly awesome, or it should be free. If blowing $50 a month on software is hurting you; then maybe you should look to improve your life in the time that you'd otherwise spend gaming.
I enjoy gaming.. I see it more as a journey than anything else. To find that one end all destination will probably never happen, and I'm glad for that.
It already failed, they only sold 300k copies and many players left because of the queues. Add in the hacking. Add in the gold selling. Add in the HUGE grind. In 2 months from now the game will be sub 100k players.
Then it can join failures like AoC, Warhammer, Vanguard, EQ2. The only MMO topping 100k with ease are WoW, LOTRO and Guild Wars atm. No game has managed to outdo WoW or come even close. Not only is that depressing, it was the developer's own damn fault every time. SoE are greedy bastards, NCsoft let their servers get hacked and botted each time, Funcom doesn't have a clue what it's doing. Is it any wonder that WoW dominates when it has 0 competition. --- Written on 9/12/09 3:43:24 PM: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3083347#3083347 Champion's Online, Aion is a copycat Korean grindfest.Champion's Online, Aion is a copycat Korean grindfest.
Hes just as lying as he claims the others do. And about the "people claiming that VG has no bugs at launch" I can only laugh.
It's not people lying it's people not knowing what they are talking about. If someone says something because they heard it from someone else it doesn't make them a liar it just makes them ill informed. Maybe if people did some actual research on whatever product they were about to buy, there wouldn't be so many people pulling their hair out over simple bs.
Other things such as "grinding" from level to level is a natural expectancy of all mmorpg's. If you are finding it hard to level then no shit, it's not supposed to get easier when you go up in levels it's supposed to get difficult and more challenging. So you can either cry more about how hard it is to level, or just admit that you are a lazy turd that wants a handout.
Fanboys, people lying about games, people giving everyone rose-tinted glasses is what's killing this genre more than anything. What is wrong with todays generation that they can not make up their own minds but seem so depended on other peoples opinions. Opinions do not hurt this genre........not understanding them as opinions could be a factor. Lates example Aion, people who tell you there's no grind when the game past lvl 20 is one HUGE grind, hours of grinding to get one level when you're lvl 20+. You see you are right some people have a very limited playstyle when it comes to playing a MMORPG as they need to be lead by the hand and if they not being led they often recall that as being "grind". You see its their own playstyle that makes them persieve "grind". Vanguard, another example, people claiming it had no bugs when it had tons on release and everyone QQ'ing they crashed. Funny, I recall mostly only complaints about Vangaurd when something was written about the game, even thought I did not encounter most of the issues many where having doesnt mean I never encountered issues, cause there where plenty of issues in the game, some of these issues where very locations or class related, which is one of the reasons sometimes to been lucky getting in the right area that had less issues or having a class that was less bugged/more polished, also can not recall any beta review or released review that did not speak about the many issues the game had. There needs to be a new system in-place where people are much much more scrutinised when they lie about MMO. I am so incredibly sick of this, you can't even trust normal people anymore since they will hide every faulty aspect of their game and everyone is disappointed when they finally play it. Why?, again why do you need others to hold your hand? that so called system you speak of would actualy be your common sense, you know your own experiance from having played/tested a game, put trust in your own judgement and not into someone else who might have a total different playstyle then you might have. When people and especially magazines / bloggers and sites, LIE, they need to be pointed out and scrutinised. Every time a PC game gets sold under the wrong impression, the wrong companies keep on making money. No wonder this industry is in so much trouble. If people can not make up their own minds on what to spend money on then indeed but not only this industry, but the whole next generation is up for much more trouble then it already is in right now. CONCRETE EXAMPLES: IGN preview claiming Aion has no grind: pc.ign.com/articles/102/1027688p2.html VS Eurogamer smashing Aion's grind in every line: www.eurogamer.net/articles/aion-the-tower-of-eternity-review
I can tell you from playing Aion that IGN was LYING and Eurogamer wasn't. How am *I*..........as a consumer, supposed to take this stuff serious anymore?
You can only tell which one leans more towards your own opinion, both can be considered right, both could be considered wrong. Why do you consider it lying?, just because it doesnt matches your own opinion?
To me its handholders that are one of the many reasons this genre is the way it is, they need everything to be served else it might be seen as "grind", they can not once think about how limited their own playstyle is yet blame the games for their own shortcommings.
Sidenote: Do you ever watch tv/movie commercials? if you do, do you feel they present their products accurate?
Grind is such as subjective term, the OP would have to make his own definition of what it is before actually calling it out, and even tho chances are everyone else has a different perspective on what is grind, people sometimes are a bit idiot to think they are right and no one else can have their opinion or views on something, the WoW case is a good case study on these forums where everyone says its crap, why are 11million people playing it then? And most ppl just cant admit that 11 million people truly like the game and have fun as it is.
But my guess is your still a bit young to realize these things, even more by looking at your previous posts that someone quoted above.
I dont think AION has any grind to me, am I lying lol, why would I need to lie, I have fun as it is, if it was a grind and I didnt have fun I would just say its crap but it isnt, and I really do hope that the 3000 ppl waiting in line when I get home do think its a grind and leave the game so I can join straight in and play.
Fanboys, people lying about games, people giving everyone rose-tinted glasses is what's killing this genre more than anything. Lates example Aion, people who tell you there's no grind when the game past lvl 20 is one HUGE grind, hours of grinding to get one level when you're lvl 20+. Vanguard, another example, people claiming it had no bugs when it had tons on release and everyone QQ'ing they crashed.
Wat r u talking about? I played Vanguard from beta, and it never crashed once and ran perfectly on my old pentium computer running windows 95.
Aion has no grind at all. In fact, I quit playing it because I maxed out in 3 weeks playing only a couple of hours a day, and didnt' have anything to do.
You need to try Darkfall. It has bleeding edge graphics, zero grind, the most sophisticated skill system I've ever seen, plus a huge friendly community.
Also, dont tell anyone, but I am really Barack Obama, and when I'm not running the United States I like to play MMORPGs. My handle is usually B-Man, so keep an eye out for me in the game!
Fanboys, people lying about games, people giving everyone rose-tinted glasses is what's killing this genre more than anything. Lates example Aion, people who tell you there's no grind when the game past lvl 20 is one HUGE grind, hours of grinding to get one level when you're lvl 20+. Vanguard, another example, people claiming it had no bugs when it had tons on release and everyone QQ'ing they crashed. There needs to be a new system in-place where people are much much more scrutinised when they lie about MMO. I am so incredibly sick of this, you can't even trust normal people anymore since they will hide every faulty aspect of their game and everyone is disappointed when they finally play it. When people and especially magazines / bloggers and sites, LIE, they need to be pointed out and scrutinised. Every time a PC game gets sold under the wrong impression, the wrong companies keep on making money. No wonder this industry is in so much trouble.
I can tell you from playing Aion that IGN was LYING and Eurogamer wasn't. How am *I*..........as a consumer, supposed to take this stuff serious anymore?
You must be a bad gamer because after only 2 weeks I have seen a lvl37 in the game (max cap is lvl50).
Explain that oh wise one ?
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
I think this sums it up nicely. Pros and cons are the way to go. People have very greyscale interests in games. For example: Grinding <---> Questing
Set Skill Tree <---> Classless Progression
Open World <---> Linear
PvP <---> PvE
Party <---> Solo So if I'm 70% Grinding and 30% Questing I will probably feel that Aion has enough quests. If I'm 90% Questing and 10% Grinding, I'll probably balk at having to grind. Or, if I'm playing FFXI and I'm 50% Solo, 50% Party, I'll probably be more upset about FFXI's party system than somebody who is 15% Solo and 85% Party.
Not a bad idea. But I am not sure if questing really is the opposite of grinding, because many games have almost only "Go kill X mobs" quests, and they are as boring grind as just killing random mobs, or actually worse since youll have to run and make a turnin every 20 mobs or so. And daily quests are a total grind.
But this is actually something in the right direction, and with a little work it could be made into a great review system.
I don't think most people are actually lying, they are not seeing the bad things. It's like being in love, you just don't see many of your lovers bad sides.
If we want a fair system for judging game we need to base them on facts.
The best way to determine the grind factor would be to count the number of mobs (same level) you need to kill to go from one level to another, and the level of non violent quests (also same level). And this is actually something the devs should go out with.
There is probably a perfect number, too few and youll level past the whole game in hours and too many and the game will be an awful grind.
Grinding <--------------> Quest Grinding
That would fix it. Both are a "grind" in that you do them over and over, but grinding can also be just fighting any mobs your level over and over, and quest grinding is fighting specific mobs after you get a quest over and over.
That would fix it. Both are a "grind" in that you do them over and over, but grinding can also be just fighting any mobs your level over and over, and quest grinding is fighting specific mobs after you get a quest over and over.
Only true for the most basic of questing.
Killing 100 boars to level is an example of mob grinding.
Doing 10 quests to kill 10 boars would equate to quest grinding.
Where questing deviates from mob grinding is in the variety; it's in the quests that require you to throw a spear at a flying dragon, hop aboard it, stab it while it tries to shake you off and then finish it with a deathblow while it tries to eat you.
It's riding a mechanical flying machine while dropping bombs on pirates.
It's tossing fish at a male walrus while luring it towards a female walrus.
Perception plays a large part; any content in a game that doesn't appeal to you but can't be avoided will feel like "grinding" to you.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Grinding <--------------> Quest Grinding That would fix it. Both are a "grind" in that you do them over and over, but grinding can also be just fighting any mobs your level over and over, and quest grinding is fighting specific mobs after you get a quest over and over.
Only true for the most basic of questing.
Killing 100 boars to level is an example of mob grinding.
Doing 10 quests to kill 10 boars would equate to quest grinding.
Where questing deviates from mob grinding is in the variety; it's in the quests that require you to throw a spear at a flying dragon, hop aboard it, stab it while it tries to shake you off and then finish it with a deathblow while it tries to eat you.
It's riding a mechanical flying machine while dropping bombs on pirates.
It's tossing fish at a male walrus while luring it towards a female walrus.
Perception plays a large part; any content in a game that doesn't appeal to you but can't be avoided will feel like "grinding" to you.
Doesn't matter what the quests are. If that's the best xp in the game, and there are tons of quests, then you grind quests, as in do one quest after another over and over, as opposed to doing whatever you want in the game.
Do the bomb pirates quest, then do the walrus quest, then do the kill dragon quest, then get more quests, do those quests.
For me, quest grinding is something like being sent back to the same area you just came back from to turn in the last quest. Where the travel takes as much or more time as performing the actual quest objective.
What I want to see is:
quest hub A gives a bunch of quests to do at point B, and then you turn them in at quest hub C, where you get a new batch of quests. Everything I do should be some sort of progression, even if only in a geographical sense. I don't like backtracking, and I can imagine the devs laughing at me when they design such quests.
BTW, walruses don't eat fish. They eat clams.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Originally posted by Ihmotepp Doesn't matter what the quests are. If that's the best xp in the game, and there are tons of quests, then you grind quests, as in do one quest after another over and over, as opposed to doing whatever you want in the game. Do the bomb pirates quest, then do the walrus quest, then do the kill dragon quest, then get more quests, do those quests. That would be "quest grinding".
I disagree entirely, which only goes to prove that perception does indeed pay a very large part.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Originally posted by Ihmotepp Doesn't matter what the quests are. If that's the best xp in the game, and there are tons of quests, then you grind quests, as in do one quest after another over and over, as opposed to doing whatever you want in the game. Do the bomb pirates quest, then do the walrus quest, then do the kill dragon quest, then get more quests, do those quests. That would be "quest grinding".
I disagree entirely, which only goes to prove that perception does indeed pay a very large part.
Actually you don't don't disagree.
The term "grinding" doesn't always mean something repetitive that is not fun, therefore perception isn't a factor in some cases.
Let's say you did those activities you listed, fight the dragon, feed the walrus, etc. and there were NO quests involved, you just did those and got xp without some NPC telling you to do it.
that would be "grinding" as in making xp without being given a quest, as opposed to "quest grinding" , that is making xp primarily doing quests. Makes no difference if the quests are fun or boring, or if the non-questing activities that bring in xp are fun or boring. One is quest grinding, the other is just grinding.
Grinding can also mean boring and repetitive, as in the "grind" after level 20 is unbearable so I quit.
But grinding can also mean just to earn xp without any structure.
Let's go feed the walrus, or kill the dragon, or bomb the pirates, no quest needed, but we'll make good xp. That would be simply "grinding".
The problem is not so much lying, but people having different measures.
An example of this is that my idea of 'grinding' is going to be different to your idea of 'grinding', because such a connotation has a negative concept in gaming then people will avoid stating such unless it defeats their concept. WoW for example will often have people say it is not a grinder, and yet I personally would say it is a grinder from my experience of continuous repetitive raiding and repetitive PvP. Other people though may say that it has well developed quest chains (which it does) and good story line which is not repetitive and so is not a grinder. While both mine and another person's opinion is true you have to question if I am making the statement because I dislike the game or is the other person making their statement because they are a big fan and doesn't want it considered to be a negative concept.
I dont think lies are the problem, it is a problem of comparison... the only way to get the best opinions is if we were all exactly the same, which we are not.
Originally posted by Ihmotepp The term "grinding" doesn't always mean something repetitive that is not fun, therefore perception isn't a factor in some cases.
See, now I disagree with that. Grind = repetitive + boring.
PvP is almost never boring to me, yet it can be quite repetitive.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Originally posted by Ihmotepp The term "grinding" doesn't always mean something repetitive that is not fun, therefore perception isn't a factor in some cases.
See, now I disagree with that. Grind = repetitive + boring.
PvP is almost never boring to me, yet it can be quite repetitive.
Grind originally meant repetitive and boring.
Now, players often use "grind" to distinguish between making xp without a quest, vs making xp with a quest.
Even if the game is really fun, and not boring, players will say they are "questing" or "grinding", but they will not necessarily mean that the "grinding" is repetitive and boring, they will mean they are earning PvE xp without questing.
Then there is "the grind" which means the game is repetitive and boring, whether you are doing quests to level, or just fighting mobs to level, either way it's so repetitive that it's not fun and feels like it takes to long to go from one level to the next.
Quests in MMORPGs are not necessarily any more engaging than just fighting mobs, IMO. The evidence of this is that when you can gain xp either way, players do not stick exclusively to quests because the quests are so much more fun.
It's only when quests give much more xp that players will primarily stick to questing rather than just running around fighting mobs on their own.
This is not to be confused with questing in a single player game, which is much, much different. When I quest in Fallout 3 for example, I make decisions and change the game world. Important NPC's live or die, never to come back, cities are destroyed, never to come back and closing off some quest lines, opening others, etc.
Comments
How is getting quest in any alternating the gameplay? You enter a town, speak to everybody with a question mark above his head and then perform the quests one by one. How is that different from Aion?
Let's divide gameplay up into 15-minute numbered "chunks". In WOW, my gameplay is:
1. Get quests
2. Kill stuff
3. Turn in/get quests
4. Kill stuff
5. Turn in/get quests
6. Kill stuff
7. Turn in/get quests
In Aion my gameplay is:
1. Get quests
2. Kill stuff
3. Turn in
4. Kill stuff
5. Kill stuff
6. Kill stuff
7. Kill stuff
Notice how one is distinctly more repetitive than the other?
Well yeah but a big majorit of the time spend in Aion is also spend on quests.
Also, Why would you play that way in number 1? If you invested in enough bag space, it's more accurate like this:
Get quests
Kill stuff until all quests are completed, return to town if your bag happens to be full
Go back to quest giver hub and give in quests
Get the next round of quests.
The only difference I see is that for some reason you run back to the quest giver after finishing every single quest.
I haven't played Aion yet (beyond the first few levels) so I won't comment on it, but in regards to alternating gameplay in WoW, I'll give you a list of the quests that are currently in my journal as I level my Paladin in WoW.
1. Go to location, disturb a next, kill a huge eagle that turns up to protect it. Harvest it's eyes, use a magical disguise to turn into a wolf and go take the eagle eyes to the alpha wolf in the area.
2. Kill boars and harvest 6 x meat to feed some walrus guys.
3. Go talk to a goblin.
4. Kill 16 undead of various types around a town overrun by scourge forces.
5. Locate and kill some scourge warlocks, collect their magical devices and use them to zap to death some sleeping giants before they wake up.
6. Locate and kill the necromancer controlling said scourge forces.
7. Locate and kill a dragonmaster to obtain his summoning horn; use it to call down his huge skeletal dragon (which I can already see flying around up there) and kill it.
Yes, most of the quests have a common theme (kill stuff) but there is a lot of variety there. Far more so than standing in one place and repeatedly killing something in order to make ones XP bar go up.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
I haven't played Aion yet (beyond the first few levels) so I won't comment on it, but in regards to alternating gameplay in WoW, I'll give you a list of the quests that are currently in my journal as I level my Paladin in WoW.
1. Go to location, disturb a next, kill a huge eagle that turns up to protect it. Harvest it's eyes, use a magical disguise to turn into a wolf and go take the eagle eyes to the alpha wolf in the area.
2. Kill boars and harvest 6 x meat to feed some walrus guys.
3. Go talk to a goblin.
4. Kill 16 undead of various types around a town overrun by scourge forces.
5. Locate and kill some scourge warlocks, collect their magical devices and use them to zap to death some sleeping giants before they wake up.
6. Locate and kill the necromancer controlling said scourge forces.
7. Locate and kill a dragonmaster to obtain his summoning horn; use it to call down his huge skeletal dragon (which I can already see flying around up there) and kill it.
Yes, most of the quests have a common theme (kill stuff) but there is a lot of variety there. Far more so than standing in one place and repeatedly killing something in order to make ones XP bar go up.
I don't see why you have the impression that in AION you will just stand in one place and repeatedly kill something in order to make ones XP bar go up.
In AION there are a ton of kill quests, crafting quests, lore related quests and PVP quests. If you know where to look and if you do group questing you will not need to to "stand in one place and repeatedly kill something in order to make ones XP bar go up."
Group questing and hunting gives a huge amount of XP.
Leveling in AION IS slower than WoW, a bit more similar to the early days of Everquest 2 some people will call it "grind" (just keep in mind it will be quest grind, especially group oriented) some people will like it.
Edit- AION leveling and PvP is much, much more enjoyable in groups, people who want to reach end game fast alone or be a loner avenger in PVP will have hard times.
...
Unless you're getting Kane and Lynch.
That game was good, Jeff Gerstmann is a dumbass.
Not a bad idea. But I am not sure if questing really is the opposite of grinding, because many games have almost only "Go kill X mobs" quests, and they are as boring grind as just killing random mobs, or actually worse since youll have to run and make a turnin every 20 mobs or so. And daily quests are a total grind.
But this is actually something in the right direction, and with a little work it could be made into a great review system.
I don't think most people are actually lying, they are not seeing the bad things. It's like being in love, you just don't see many of your lovers bad sides.
If we want a fair system for judging game we need to base them on facts.
The best way to determine the grind factor would be to count the number of mobs (same level) you need to kill to go from one level to another, and the level of non violent quests (also same level). And this is actually something the devs should go out with.
There is probably a perfect number, too few and youll level past the whole game in hours and too many and the game will be an awful grind.
Written on 10/02/09 8:52:37 PM:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3130298#3130298
It already failed, they only sold 300k copies and many players left because of the queues.
Add in the hacking.
Add in the gold selling.
Add in the HUGE grind.
In 2 months from now the game will be sub 100k players.
Then it can join failures like AoC, Warhammer, Vanguard, EQ2.
The only MMO topping 100k with ease are WoW, LOTRO and Guild Wars atm. No game has managed to outdo WoW or come even close. Not only is that depressing, it was the developer's own damn fault every time.
SoE are greedy bastards, NCsoft let their servers get hacked and botted each time, Funcom doesn't have a clue what it's doing.
Is it any wonder that WoW dominates when it has 0 competition.
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Written on 9/12/09 3:43:24 PM:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3083347#3083347
Champion's Online, Aion is a copycat Korean grindfest.Champion's Online, Aion is a copycat Korean grindfest.
Hes just as lying as he claims the others do.
And about the "people claiming that VG has no bugs at launch" I can only laugh.
Whether a game is 'grindy' or not does not matter to me - but as the OP said I hate when people 'lie' during Beta.
What really annoys me is Fanbois who shout down anyone who dares to question any aspect of a game pre-release.
If you are going to raise these type of issues pre-release is exactly the right time to do it. Post Release is too late.
If things aren't rosy then Devs need to know - if they are prepared to listen that is.
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
I've bought a lot of music that I ended up disliking, and I've watched a lot of movies that I wished I could have gotten a refund afterward; all just based on other people's personal preference that I should have read into in their reviews. Entertainment is universally expensive in modern society, and it has caught up the the MMO universe.
I've come to accept the genre for what it is now days.. You see a game that is interesting, you choose to pay for the software, use your months trial, and decide from there. Hopefully the game is good enough to get a month of play out of it, but I'm tired of being upset from buying into the hype on gaming forums. Developers often don't listen or don't care, and I see the same mistakes being repeated over and over by nearly every company putting out new games, so this is just my philosophy to cope with the current state of online gaming.
Gamers reach their saturation point rather quickly, and I think a lot of people still have this web 1.0 mind-frame that online entertainment should either be utterly awesome, or it should be free. If blowing $50 a month on software is hurting you; then maybe you should look to improve your life in the time that you'd otherwise spend gaming.
I enjoy gaming.. I see it more as a journey than anything else. To find that one end all destination will probably never happen, and I'm glad for that.
Interesting...
This is a stupid topic.
There is grind in Aion, but not at the early level. And review from Eurogamer and IGN is only for early level.
And the OP looks like wow fanboy, Blizzard employee, or Blizzard shareholder.
It's not people lying it's people not knowing what they are talking about. If someone says something because they heard it from someone else it doesn't make them a liar it just makes them ill informed. Maybe if people did some actual research on whatever product they were about to buy, there wouldn't be so many people pulling their hair out over simple bs.
Other things such as "grinding" from level to level is a natural expectancy of all mmorpg's. If you are finding it hard to level then no shit, it's not supposed to get easier when you go up in levels it's supposed to get difficult and more challenging. So you can either cry more about how hard it is to level, or just admit that you are a lazy turd that wants a handout.
You can only tell which one leans more towards your own opinion, both can be considered right, both could be considered wrong. Why do you consider it lying?, just because it doesnt matches your own opinion?
To me its handholders that are one of the many reasons this genre is the way it is, they need everything to be served else it might be seen as "grind", they can not once think about how limited their own playstyle is yet blame the games for their own shortcommings.
Sidenote: Do you ever watch tv/movie commercials? if you do, do you feel they present their products accurate?
Edit: ' left out due to it messing up text
Grind is such as subjective term, the OP would have to make his own definition of what it is before actually calling it out, and even tho chances are everyone else has a different perspective on what is grind, people sometimes are a bit idiot to think they are right and no one else can have their opinion or views on something, the WoW case is a good case study on these forums where everyone says its crap, why are 11million people playing it then? And most ppl just cant admit that 11 million people truly like the game and have fun as it is.
But my guess is your still a bit young to realize these things, even more by looking at your previous posts that someone quoted above.
I dont think AION has any grind to me, am I lying lol, why would I need to lie, I have fun as it is, if it was a grind and I didnt have fun I would just say its crap but it isnt, and I really do hope that the 3000 ppl waiting in line when I get home do think its a grind and leave the game so I can join straight in and play.
Wat r u talking about? I played Vanguard from beta, and it never crashed once and ran perfectly on my old pentium computer running windows 95.
Aion has no grind at all. In fact, I quit playing it because I maxed out in 3 weeks playing only a couple of hours a day, and didnt' have anything to do.
You need to try Darkfall. It has bleeding edge graphics, zero grind, the most sophisticated skill system I've ever seen, plus a huge friendly community.
Also, dont tell anyone, but I am really Barack Obama, and when I'm not running the United States I like to play MMORPGs. My handle is usually B-Man, so keep an eye out for me in the game!
You must be a bad gamer because after only 2 weeks I have seen a lvl37 in the game (max cap is lvl50).
Explain that oh wise one ?
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...
Not a bad idea. But I am not sure if questing really is the opposite of grinding, because many games have almost only "Go kill X mobs" quests, and they are as boring grind as just killing random mobs, or actually worse since youll have to run and make a turnin every 20 mobs or so. And daily quests are a total grind.
But this is actually something in the right direction, and with a little work it could be made into a great review system.
I don't think most people are actually lying, they are not seeing the bad things. It's like being in love, you just don't see many of your lovers bad sides.
If we want a fair system for judging game we need to base them on facts.
The best way to determine the grind factor would be to count the number of mobs (same level) you need to kill to go from one level to another, and the level of non violent quests (also same level). And this is actually something the devs should go out with.
There is probably a perfect number, too few and youll level past the whole game in hours and too many and the game will be an awful grind.
Grinding <--------------> Quest Grinding
That would fix it. Both are a "grind" in that you do them over and over, but grinding can also be just fighting any mobs your level over and over, and quest grinding is fighting specific mobs after you get a quest over and over.
Only true for the most basic of questing.
Killing 100 boars to level is an example of mob grinding.
Doing 10 quests to kill 10 boars would equate to quest grinding.
Where questing deviates from mob grinding is in the variety; it's in the quests that require you to throw a spear at a flying dragon, hop aboard it, stab it while it tries to shake you off and then finish it with a deathblow while it tries to eat you.
It's riding a mechanical flying machine while dropping bombs on pirates.
It's tossing fish at a male walrus while luring it towards a female walrus.
Perception plays a large part; any content in a game that doesn't appeal to you but can't be avoided will feel like "grinding" to you.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Only true for the most basic of questing.
Killing 100 boars to level is an example of mob grinding.
Doing 10 quests to kill 10 boars would equate to quest grinding.
Where questing deviates from mob grinding is in the variety; it's in the quests that require you to throw a spear at a flying dragon, hop aboard it, stab it while it tries to shake you off and then finish it with a deathblow while it tries to eat you.
It's riding a mechanical flying machine while dropping bombs on pirates.
It's tossing fish at a male walrus while luring it towards a female walrus.
Perception plays a large part; any content in a game that doesn't appeal to you but can't be avoided will feel like "grinding" to you.
Doesn't matter what the quests are. If that's the best xp in the game, and there are tons of quests, then you grind quests, as in do one quest after another over and over, as opposed to doing whatever you want in the game.
Do the bomb pirates quest, then do the walrus quest, then do the kill dragon quest, then get more quests, do those quests.
That would be "quest grinding".
For me, quest grinding is something like being sent back to the same area you just came back from to turn in the last quest. Where the travel takes as much or more time as performing the actual quest objective.
What I want to see is:
quest hub A gives a bunch of quests to do at point B, and then you turn them in at quest hub C, where you get a new batch of quests. Everything I do should be some sort of progression, even if only in a geographical sense. I don't like backtracking, and I can imagine the devs laughing at me when they design such quests.
BTW, walruses don't eat fish. They eat clams.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I disagree entirely, which only goes to prove that perception does indeed pay a very large part.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
You're right, I apologise .. it were a sea lion, not a walrus.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
I disagree entirely, which only goes to prove that perception does indeed pay a very large part.
Actually you don't don't disagree.
The term "grinding" doesn't always mean something repetitive that is not fun, therefore perception isn't a factor in some cases.
Let's say you did those activities you listed, fight the dragon, feed the walrus, etc. and there were NO quests involved, you just did those and got xp without some NPC telling you to do it.
that would be "grinding" as in making xp without being given a quest, as opposed to "quest grinding" , that is making xp primarily doing quests. Makes no difference if the quests are fun or boring, or if the non-questing activities that bring in xp are fun or boring. One is quest grinding, the other is just grinding.
Grinding can also mean boring and repetitive, as in the "grind" after level 20 is unbearable so I quit.
But grinding can also mean just to earn xp without any structure.
Let's go feed the walrus, or kill the dragon, or bomb the pirates, no quest needed, but we'll make good xp. That would be simply "grinding".
The problem is not so much lying, but people having different measures.
An example of this is that my idea of 'grinding' is going to be different to your idea of 'grinding', because such a connotation has a negative concept in gaming then people will avoid stating such unless it defeats their concept. WoW for example will often have people say it is not a grinder, and yet I personally would say it is a grinder from my experience of continuous repetitive raiding and repetitive PvP. Other people though may say that it has well developed quest chains (which it does) and good story line which is not repetitive and so is not a grinder. While both mine and another person's opinion is true you have to question if I am making the statement because I dislike the game or is the other person making their statement because they are a big fan and doesn't want it considered to be a negative concept.
I dont think lies are the problem, it is a problem of comparison... the only way to get the best opinions is if we were all exactly the same, which we are not.
See, now I disagree with that. Grind = repetitive + boring.
PvP is almost never boring to me, yet it can be quite repetitive.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
See, now I disagree with that. Grind = repetitive + boring.
PvP is almost never boring to me, yet it can be quite repetitive.
Grind originally meant repetitive and boring.
Now, players often use "grind" to distinguish between making xp without a quest, vs making xp with a quest.
Even if the game is really fun, and not boring, players will say they are "questing" or "grinding", but they will not necessarily mean that the "grinding" is repetitive and boring, they will mean they are earning PvE xp without questing.
Then there is "the grind" which means the game is repetitive and boring, whether you are doing quests to level, or just fighting mobs to level, either way it's so repetitive that it's not fun and feels like it takes to long to go from one level to the next.
Quests in MMORPGs are not necessarily any more engaging than just fighting mobs, IMO. The evidence of this is that when you can gain xp either way, players do not stick exclusively to quests because the quests are so much more fun.
It's only when quests give much more xp that players will primarily stick to questing rather than just running around fighting mobs on their own.
This is not to be confused with questing in a single player game, which is much, much different. When I quest in Fallout 3 for example, I make decisions and change the game world. Important NPC's live or die, never to come back, cities are destroyed, never to come back and closing off some quest lines, opening others, etc.