Questing for exp is fine but i do not agree with solo questing to max level then being tossed in to group content, moving from solo play to team work play is to tough for most people, so they just end up quitting and then moving on to the next mmo.
In FFXI from level 10 up it teaches you how to work as a team getting you ready for some of the tough stuff along your journey, yet still has solo gameplay as you wait for a party.
This is what FFXI did right about quests: more for The Reward, The Story, The Fame, Level cap raising quests & quests that open up new Jobs. 0 EXP quests.
No npcs don't have !? over their head, no quest tracker & no wall of text on the dreaded black background - my god that's lame/old and over used by todays mmo's.
Bottom line i don't like western quest driven grinders where solo questing exp/reward is greater then going out seeking for a group playing with others "Forced solo play from level 1 to cap" is today's standards and to be blunt i hate it... really nothing i can do about it...i just don't care anymore.
Both of us can get xp and advance our characters doing what we want. So what exactly is the problem with quests giving xp?
I suspect, because it's not so much that certain players want the option to play the way they want to play, they just want others to NOT be able to play the way they want to play. Or at best, they see it as some big 'leet epeen talking point like it takes some mad skillz to, in this example, not want quests.
This whole forum is inundated with elitist epeen attitudes...
"I'm da gamin mastah cuz I like ffa pvp"
"I'm da gamin mastah cuz I want huge death penalties"
"I'm da gamin mastah cuz I prefer sandbox games."
IMO it's not to prove what game, or game design is better, it's to prove that that person is a hardcore ultral33t mastah who'd pwn anybody at the nonexistent game they're thinking up in their heads, and that the reason they get pwned in games that actually exist is because there's some game mechanic that gives other gamers an unfair advantage over them.
You know, I could throw insults back at you but I'll try to be reasonable.
I'll be the first to acknowledge that I am not elite and never was in any game. And no, I don't want to force people to play the way I want to play as evidenced by the fact that I never demanded that ALL games must conform to my desires.
Look, understanding my motivations for posting about this stuff is really not complicated. There is no grand conspiracy here. No nefarious plot to deny you and others of your games.
All there is to it is the fact that I want a fun game to play again. The game which is fun for me might not be fun for you but live and let live, right? Do ALL games have to be designed to suit YOU?
And in reply to SnarlingWolf:
People who enjoy the current model of solo questing often seem to think that folks like me can still enjoy the old style gameplay in these new games but it just doesn't work that way. Try to be honest with yourself and think about whether or not it could ever be the same.
Games designed for solo questing are simply not designed for the old style group mob grinding / dungeon crawling game play. The mobs are too weak, the layout is wrong, the pick-up groups aren't there, the death penalty is missing (and yes that does relate to the issue, death penalties are reduced for the soloing games in part to make soloing more feasable by reducing risk).
And even if you disagree with all of that just think about the way things were in early EQ and honestly ask yourself if someone could get the same sort of thing from, say, WoW. The most average, typical day in EQ went like this; log in, decide where you want to go, go there, /shout (class/level) LFG or send a /tell to some group leader who had just /shouted "group looking for more", and usually in just a minute or two you'd be in a group having fun.
It simply doesn't work like that in quest based games and trying to force it to work that way would be an exercise in futility. And even if you did get a group together to go grind mobs it wouldn't be the same sort of thing because you would be killing mobs in a game designed for soloing and not for grouping.
In reply to the notion that people who dislike solo quest grinding want games to be slower to somehow hurt the more casual players:
I don't understand that logic at all. One hour playing is the same length of time whether you are grouping to grind mobs or soloing to grind quests. Putting a group together might take a little time but that is exactly one of the reasons why I want a game which strongly encourages grouping because the more ubiquitous grouping is the faster and easier it is to get into groups.
Also, some people seem to automatically assume that group mob grinding means slower leveling which is not necessarily true. Now I'll admit that I am in favor of slower leveling but then I've never understood why people are in such a rush to hurry through games as quickly as possible. Maybe it's because I don't generally enjoy the "endgame" in games and so I want the leveling phase to last longer. Or maybe it's just because I don't really give a damn about leveling as long as I'm having fun. I've always felt that levels are pretty damn silly to begin with so I guess I just don't understand the obsession with leveling up and the pressing need some people feel to burn through games at warp speed.
FFXI did get it right, offering quests and missions to increase a variety of things and no exp was given. The group focus starting at level 10 all the way through the end prepared you for end game activities and I sure hope the same happens with 14.
Out of all the MMOS I have played recently, the quest/storyline for AoC from 1-20 was probably the best i've seen. You felt the immersion and received exp/rewards. The problem with the game is everything seem to suck after 20. The quests became boring.
I don't understand what you mean. How is an npc telling you to kill x number of beetles any different than you killing x number of beetles .. other than an npc telling you to do so?
So? Does the NPC with a quest stop you from killing beetles on your own initiative? No.
If you want to straight up grind go do it.
If someone else feels like dicing up grinding with some questlines, they have that option.
How does your argument discredit quests? Quests, storylines, story arc, lore, ... all these are just features and options that might help make a game experience richer, and they are all options. You do not need to read any of these. You can just go grind the same mob everyday and do not feel bothered. Options are not compulsory.
For those who care for options, options are improvements, for you they are transparent. Why is it not win win for all.
You just made my point thank you. Most games now reward xp from mainly questing than the monsters you kill. I am only asking that the xp be put on killing the monster rather than the quest turn in. Then we will have what you just said, if you want to to do the quest fine do it, if you want to just kill the monsters and get the same xp then that would be your choice as well.
The choice should be whether or not you want to follow the scripted quest .. not forced questing by putting all the xp rewards on the quest turn in part. The quest could still exist and leveling could be still just as fast but the xp should come from the kills you make not the turn in. That way quest are optional for people that like an npc telling them to kill X number of Ys. The reward could be extra gold or the an item for the quest. Let people have the freedom to choose.
So you are wrong, they are not optional in most games today. Quest are where the bulk of the xp is coming from. A person just killing monsters in most modern games will level much slower than someone questing and people that decide to make their own adventures should be able to without penalty.
I don't understand what you mean. How is an npc telling you to kill x number of beetles any different than you killing x number of beetles .. other than an npc telling you to do so?
So? Does the NPC with a quest stop you from killing beetles on your own initiative? No.
If you want to straight up grind go do it.
If someone else feels like dicing up grinding with some questlines, they have that option.
How does your argument discredit quests? Quests, storylines, story arc, lore, ... all these are just features and options that might help make a game experience richer, and they are all options. You do not need to read any of these. You can just go grind the same mob everyday and do not feel bothered. Options are not compulsory.
For those who care for options, options are improvements, for you they are transparent. Why is it not win win for all.
You just made my point thank you. Most games now reward xp from mainly questing than the monsters you kill. I am only asking that the xp be put on killing the monster rather than the quest turn in. Then we will have what you just said, if you want to to do the quest fine do it, if you want to just kill the monsters and get the same xp then that would be your choice as well.
The choice should be whether or not you want to follow the scripted quest .. not forced questing by putting all the xp rewards on the quest turn in part. The quest could still exist and leveling could be still just as fast but the xp should come from the kills you make not the turn in. That way quest are optional for people that like an npc telling them to kill X number of Ys. The reward could be extra gold or the an item for the quest. Let people have the freedom to choose.
So you are wrong, they are not optional in most games today. Quest are where the bulk of the xp is coming from. A person just killing monsters in most modern games will level much slower than someone questing and people that decide to make their own adventures should be able to without penalty.
This would only work in a sandbox-style environment. What you are basically describing is how SWG used to be - the quests (i.e. missions) were pretty much inconsequential but provided a little extra cash than pure grinding did.
I don't understand what you mean. How is an npc telling you to kill x number of beetles any different than you killing x number of beetles .. other than an npc telling you to do so?
So? Does the NPC with a quest stop you from killing beetles on your own initiative? No.
If you want to straight up grind go do it.
If someone else feels like dicing up grinding with some questlines, they have that option.
How does your argument discredit quests? Quests, storylines, story arc, lore, ... all these are just features and options that might help make a game experience richer, and they are all options. You do not need to read any of these. You can just go grind the same mob everyday and do not feel bothered. Options are not compulsory.
For those who care for options, options are improvements, for you they are transparent. Why is it not win win for all.
You just made my point thank you. Most games now reward xp from mainly questing than the monsters you kill. I am only asking that the xp be put on killing the monster rather than the quest turn in. Then we will have what you just said, if you want to to do the quest fine do it, if you want to just kill the monsters and get the same xp then that would be your choice as well.
The choice should be whether or not you want to follow the scripted quest .. not forced questing by putting all the xp rewards on the quest turn in part. The quest could still exist and leveling could be still just as fast but the xp should come from the kills you make not the turn in. That way quest are optional for people that like an npc telling them to kill X number of Ys. The reward could be extra gold or the an item for the quest. Let people have the freedom to choose.
So you are wrong, they are not optional in most games today. Quest are where the bulk of the xp is coming from. A person just killing monsters in most modern games will level much slower than someone questing and people that decide to make their own adventures should be able to without penalty.
That, is a load of crap. Or you're playing a horrible MMO. Or you haven't bothered to try to figure out how to best get XP in your current MMO.
Currently, XP comes from both, at least in my most current example, LotRO. CoX was also the case.
In LotRO, you have to kill about 8-13 same level mobs to get the same XP as from a same level quest. This isn't difficult to do in the amount of time it takes to run back to the quest giver, and come back to the field. Most of the quest rewards are inferior to crafted and reputation items, so it ends up as vendor trash. The coin you get for the quest is dismal compared to the loot from 8-13 mobs.
The payoff largely breaks out even. The exception to that is if you're out in the field chasing blue or green mobs, opposed to turning in 3-4 quests at a time. Blue/green don't get you much, and shouldn't. You have to go where the mobs are actually a challenge. Join up with someone and go after reds. THAT is the ultimate XP grind.
LotRO even rewards the grinding style of gameplay for those that prefer it. Many deeds you get are from killing some 100-500 of the same mob in a zone, and the deed gives you bonuses to combat specs and skills. Not to mention, the deed gives you XP; you automatically start earning the deed when you kill the first mob, and automatically get the deed and XP when you kill the last. No quest giver involved.
In CoX, for max XP to time, it's common knowledge that you should "farm" out an instance that is mob intensive. In other words, don't leave it until you've completely wiped all the mobs out. Now, if the quest rewards far outweighed the XP from mobs, why would you do this instead of finishing ASAP and moving on to the next mission? Especially in a game that's nowhere near as loot based as other MMO's?
Yours is a false assumption feeding on the "evidence" that the XP bar hardly moves when you kill a mob, but moves significantly when you complete a quest. But time/XP is largely the same. Matter of fact, the fastest I lvl'ed in LotRO was being in a group in Goblin Town, mowing down Gobs and Trolls left and right. I was there for hours and completed maybe 2-3 quests. Lvl'ed twice.
Now where your half right is in this: If ALL you do is quests, or ALL you do is grind, you won't get as much XP as someone who does a combination of BOTH. But to say that doing simply one or the other is not viable, is absolute nonsense, in my examples.
In the end, the only way to do what you suggest is to make questing LESS rewarding than grinding. This would be MMO suicide, as most people don't LIKE grinding and therefore most people wouldn't be playing in a way that they would enjoy. Sooner than later, they'd quit.
I love quest reward exp. I like to have a reason to be killing the mobs other than do the old EQ method of standing in a spot for hours killing the same mobs over and over until people come and try to steal your camp.
WoW did it the best, solo or group quest if you want. Instances at all levels no problem. Honestly I can't believe this topic keeps coming up. If you don't want to quest for xp don't do it!! go freaking grind all you want. Go play Aion, or the other bunch of games that are strictly boring stupid grinding.
Anytime I have to watch t.v. to keep myself from getting bored of grinding the game is crap in my eyes.
Both of us can get xp and advance our characters doing what we want. So what exactly is the problem with quests giving xp?
I suspect, because it's not so much that certain players want the option to play the way they want to play, they just want others to NOT be able to play the way they want to play. Or at best, they see it as some big 'leet epeen talking point like it takes some mad skillz to, in this example, not want quests.
This whole forum is inundated with elitist epeen attitudes...
"I'm da gamin mastah cuz I like ffa pvp"
"I'm da gamin mastah cuz I want huge death penalties"
"I'm da gamin mastah cuz I prefer sandbox games."
IMO it's not to prove what game, or game design is better, it's to prove that that person is a hardcore ultral33t mastah who'd pwn anybody at the nonexistent game they're thinking up in their heads, and that the reason they get pwned in games that actually exist is because there's some game mechanic that gives other gamers an unfair advantage over them.
You know, I could throw insults back at you but I'll try to be reasonable.
I'll be the first to acknowledge that I am not elite and never was in any game. And no, I don't want to force people to play the way I want to play as evidenced by the fact that I never demanded that ALL games must conform to my desires.
Look, understanding my motivations for posting about this stuff is really not complicated. There is no grand conspiracy here. No nefarious plot to deny you and others of your games.
All there is to it is the fact that I want a fun game to play again. The game which is fun for me might not be fun for you but live and let live, right? Do ALL games have to be designed to suit YOU?
Nope. That's why I'm not calling for anyones game to be changed, and/or criticizing a current trend in gaming that is bringing more and more people to the genre. Nor am I over in UO's forums saying: "Grind-for-Exp is stupid".
Exactly, how is "just wanting a fun game to play again" match up with the thread title: "Quest-for-Exp is stupid"?
A game doesn't require quests for me to enjoy it. I played Eve for some time in 2005 and enjoyed it. I played pre-NGE SWG and enjoyed it. Now I play games with missions and quests and enjoy them. I'm not so much interested in the game mechanic as I am in the freedom to CHOOSE how to advance my character. My current game, LotRO gives me that, while having an overfull line of quests along with it. In no way do I feel "forced" to do the quests. Matter of fact, I find myself deleting many of them because I've already advanced past them, due to "grinding mobs" and now skirmishes.
And in reply to SnarlingWolf:
People who enjoy the current model of solo questing often seem to think that folks like me can still enjoy the old style gameplay in these new games but it just doesn't work that way. Try to be honest with yourself and think about whether or not it could ever be the same.
Games designed for solo questing are simply not designed for the old style group mob grinding / dungeon crawling game play. The mobs are too weak, the layout is wrong, the pick-up groups aren't there, the death penalty is missing (and yes that does relate to the issue, death penalties are reduced for the soloing games in part to make soloing more feasable by reducing risk).
1. If it's "too easy", go to a more difficult area.
2. How does a stiff death penalty "add" to grouping? All it does is make you less valuable to the group if you die.
And even if you disagree with all of that just think about the way things were in early EQ and honestly ask yourself if someone could get the same sort of thing from, say, WoW.
No. Thank GOD. If it were superior to WoW, people would be playing it.
In reply to the notion that people who dislike solo quest grinding want games to be slower to somehow hurt the more casual players:
I don't understand that logic at all. One hour playing is the same length of time whether you are grouping to grind mobs or soloing to grind quests. Putting a group together might take a little time but that is exactly one of the reasons why I want a game which strongly encourages grouping because the more ubiquitous grouping is the faster and easier it is to get into groups.
I've never played a game that doesn't encourage grouping. XP bonuses, elite mobs, big ticket loot only in group quests and raids, higher XP for red mobs and lower XP for blues/greens... if this isn't enough, then that says more about the basic social element than it does about the game.
But you're not talking about "encouraging" grouping if you expect it to be "ubiquitous", you're talking about FORCING grouping. Which is what you do if you make it to where 1 person can't make it through through a same level zone on their own. Most people prefer to function on their own much of the time(in reality and MMO's), and group together for certain things for the betterment of all. Imagine society if we had to have another person around to do 90% of what we do on a given day. It simply wouldn't work.
Also, some people seem to automatically assume that group mob grinding means slower leveling which is not necessarily true. Now I'll admit that I am in favor of slower leveling but then I've never understood why people are in such a rush to hurry through games as quickly as possible. Maybe it's because I don't generally enjoy the "endgame" in games and so I want the leveling phase to last longer. Or maybe it's just because I don't really give a damn about leveling as long as I'm having fun. I've always felt that levels are pretty damn silly to begin with so I guess I just don't understand the obsession with leveling up and the pressing need some people feel to burn through games at warp speed.
It means slower leveling due to increased downtime.
1. Hunting for a group or starting a group.
2. Waiting for everyone to get properly geared up and take care of inventory issues.
3. Getting everyone to the zone.
4. Replacing the people that had to quit while you were waiting.
5. Waiting for the new people to do steps 2 and 3.
Many games accomodate this in a number of ways, via portals and summon horns, which is good. The leets then accuse those games of being "care bear"... "teleports totally blow the immersion, dude... make the world seem small"
I'm not in a hurry either; slower advancement isn't an issue for me, it's WAITING with nothing to do that's an issue for me. For me, waiting 15-20 minutes in an MMO is slightly more interesting than waiting in line 15-20 minutes at the supermarket. SLIGHTLY more interesting...
Originally posted by Neanderthal.....blah blah blah
....blah blah blah
These pissing contests are so pointless. Should I spend more time going through it all point by point just so you can come back and do the same again and then I do it again and then you, then me, then you, and we keep going around in circles?
Look, I'm using EQ as my example because honestly it was the game I had the most fun in. That's not to say it was perfect. I had plenty of complaints about it and, hell, I used to bitch about mob grinding myself. But when I bitched about it I assumed that someday we would have something better. To me...just speaking for myself...solo quest grinding is far worse. I also used to spend a lot of time thinking about the elusive DREAM GAME which in my mind is not much like EQ at all but that's just my idle fantasy and it will never happen. So when it comes to the basic day to day gameplay if I were given a choice between EQ style play and WoW style play I would choose EQ style, the way it was at low to mid levels in the first two or three years. Unfortunately it no longer exists.
Now what you and others are doing is basically telling me and others that we can still get EQ (or other games) style of play in these newer games. But no matter what you say we know we can't. And I'm sure that you know it as well. If we could get it then WoW and other games of it's ilk would be just like EQ and they clearly are not. You know they are not because you say that WoW is better, you point out what you see as flaws with older games which don't exist in newer games, and so on. So you obviously see that there is a difference. You understand that they are not the same.
And yet, while pointing out the differences in old and new games you will at same time tell people that they are the same by claiming they can get the same sort of gameplay from the new games. Clearly they cannot be different and identical at the same time. You know that, I know that, everyone who has posted in this thread knows it.
Originally posted by FreddyNoNose Pretty much the people who live in their mother's basements want the mob grind to matter. Losers from the old days of gaming.
Good point. Grinding quests all day is so much more interesting. I mean, there's a cute little blip on your mini-map telling you exactly where to go! How fun and stimulating. And not only that, you get to run around a lot! I have trouble thinking of anything more interesting that running around town looking for peole with a neat exclamation point about their head, clicking on them, saying "ok", then following the arrow telling me exactly where to go and what to do. Run back and forth and back and forth. Kill ten of this and ten of that. Continue running around. Don't ever stop because then you won't be gaining exp. Just keep running and clicking and following your mini-map. Quests are nice because I don't like thinking. Thinking is for losers from the old days of gaming who probably live in their mother's basements.
As we can see from your posting you don't like thinking. That's ok, a really stupid person would reply to this post.
But you're missing his brilliance. The brilliance that:
1. Ignores that many games allow you to turn the guides off, and
2. loves to play the smart card by not wanting games to have built in guides so they can get them at an independent website instead, all the while congratulating themselves on their resourcefulness.
See... the smart guys have the laptop next to their pc's... THOSE guys are the cream of the crop. The uberbright and powerful 'leet...
Come on man. I've been reasonable throughout this discussion until the above poster decided to cast a blanket generalization on people who prefer mobs grinds over quests as basement dweller losers. I only responded to his absurd comment with an equally absurd one of my own. I honestly thought you were reasonable based on your earlier posts, but coming to the defense of FreddyNoNose, with his "thoughtful" one-line posts suggests otherwise.
Perhaps I should have responded to your post directly rather than tack onto D34dly D34dlys...
How is it MORE exciting to NOT have arrows? How is it more exciting to run around a zone killing the same mobs over and over trying to find the quest area? Seems to me that if that were more appealing to people, there'd be an MMO where all you do is look for your car keys...
But either way... people loved that method of gameplay so much that they didn't flock to game guide sites and in some cases, pay subscription fees to access them.
Except they did. People didn't want to spend all their time running around like idiots, and so devs responded. They know how frustrating it is to try to find something that should be right under your nose, as they too have to find their keys in the morning, and also don't find the process very amusing.
Originally posted by Neanderthal.....blah blah blah
....blah blah blah
These pissing contests are so pointless. Should I spend more time going through it all point by point just so you can come back and do the same again and then I do it again and then you, then me, then you, and we keep going around in circles?
Look, I'm using EQ as my example because honestly it was the game I had the most fun in. That's not to say it was perfect. I had plenty of complaints about it and, hell, I used to bitch about mob grinding myself. But when I bitched about it I assumed that someday we would have something better. To me...just speaking for myself...solo quest grinding is far worse. I also used to spend a lot of time thinking about the elusive DREAM GAME which in my mind is not much like EQ at all but that's just my idle fantasy and it will never happen. So when it comes to the basic day to day gameplay if I were given a choice between EQ style play and WoW style play I would choose EQ style, the way it was at low to mid levels in the first two or three years. Unfortunately it no longer exists.
Now what you and others are doing is basically telling me and others that we can still get EQ (or other games) style of play in these newer games. But no matter what you say we know we can't. (wow... there's some nihilism for ya)And I'm sure that you know it as well. If we could get it then WoW and other games of it's ilk would be just like EQ and they clearly are not. (If you want an EQ style of gameplay, go play EQ. Folks complain of WoW clones, but you seem to think EQ clones would be a good thing? I doubt even EQ devs would agree with you.)
You know they are not because you say that WoW is better, you point out what you see as flaws with older games which don't exist in newer games, and so on. So you obviously see that there is a difference. You understand that they are not the same.(absolutely. They took many of the good things, removed the obvious bad things, and still provided a means for people to play the old way. In the development world, that's called "legacy coding". Being able to emote, use text scripts and what not through the chat panel are one example. Control-S to save in Word. If someone wants to ctrl-s and someone else wants to click save, they both can do it. If I want to grab a guildie or 2 and head to Angmar 5 levels early, I can do it. Lots of fun, too)
And yet, while pointing out the differences in old and new games you will at same time tell people that they are the same by claiming they can get the same sort of gameplay from the new games. Clearly they cannot be different and identical at the same time. You know that, I know that, everyone who has posted in this thread knows it. (No, I don't say the games "are the same". They aren't. That's why I'm playing LotRO and not EQ. What a silly black and white argument. "It's different. It's not identical. Therefore I can't play the way I want to." It would be profoundly stupid for a developer to make the same game that was made years ago. Why do you even bother looking for a new game?)
Your point is taken. And in my opinion, solo "grinding" is not worse, and in my examples, not necessary. You insist it is, and I disagree.
I don't recall telling you you could have an "EQ style of gameplay"; perhaps someone else did. But what I AM saying is that you can, in LotRO, group with others, wander into an elite zone around your level, or a normal zone 3-4 levels higher, and have a great experience while getting lots of experience; likely more than you could questing by yourself.
This certainly is the case in CoX. XP in groups comes MUCH faster in CoX grouped than solo, and you can control precisely how difficult your mobs will be.
After reading this, I can't help but think that what you demand has nothing to do with gameplay. Perhaps you just want those old experiences and feelings back that you had with a game that was one of the first graphic massive multiplayer games ever made. Perhaps you were in an awesome guild or had some friends that have since moved on to play something else, or left the gaming world altogether. These things, like the wild college days, eventually come to an end.
That's just not something any new game will be able to give you.
Originally posted by Robsolf I don't recall telling you you could have an "EQ style of gameplay"; perhaps someone else did.
Nobody said that explicitly but it's what you guys keep implying. You all keep saying we can still play the way we want if we just go and do it, nobody is stopping us. You just did it again in your last post when you said, "....and still provided a means for people to play the old way."
Well, ok, it's true that we could try to play new games as if they were the same as older games but they still wouldn't be the same. I could also dress up like a cowboy, hop on a horse, and ride through the plains pretending it's the 1860's but just because I did that it wouldn't suddenly transform that part of the country back to what it was in the wild west days. I could try to pretend that it's the same but the inescapable reality would be that it's not.
And you know I probably would go back to EQ if they hadn't changed it and f-ed it up so much. But there is another inescapable reality, it's just not the same game anymore. And if truth be told I would prefer a new game to a old game anyway if for no other reason than to have a fresh start at the begining. Maybe I'm a terrible, evil person for wanting that but if that's the case I'll just have to accept my inherantly evil nature.
Also, I'm not saying I want a game exactly like EQ was back then, god forbid, because there were some things I really hated about it. But I wish someone would try to take the best part of it which was the leveling phase from low to mid levels in the first few years and make a new game based primarily on that. It wouldn't be my dream game but at least I could have fun in it.
Originally posted by Robsolf I don't recall telling you you could have an "EQ style of gameplay"; perhaps someone else did.
Also, I'm not saying I want a game exactly like EQ was back then, god forbid, because there were some things I really hated about it. But I wish someone would try to take the best part of it which was the leveling phase from low to mid levels in the first few years and make a new game based primarily on that. It wouldn't be my dream game but at least I could have fun in it.
Well, I hope you find it, seriously. I don't think it's "evil" to want a game like that, but wanting such a game and wanting someone to change a game that's not that to one that is is an issue. I know that's not what you're saying, but others have.
I think you know that in order to get exactly what you want, you have to prevent many others from playing the way they want to. LotRO, IMO, offers players a choice, even though you may feel it's a false one. Really, the only way to get what you want without kicking solo'ers to the curb is to create a skirmish type experience, or whole, out of the way zones in which the mobs are such that you cannot pass through alone. And given the amount of data devs and directors have to sift through for their game; what quests players do and don't do, how often people group and don't group, etc... there's probably be a pretty clear picture to direct their efforts.
I haven't played Everquest in a long long long long time, so I don't know much about how it's changed. I recall it seeming tedious, IMO, which is ironic since I had been playing a MUD called DragonRealms for years, featuring potential permadeath and a lvling system that after several years, no one had maxed. Tried UO on a free server; that seemed even worse, back again I went to DragonRealms. My first graphic mainstay MMO would become SWG. I loved it, but if I had pre-NGE back, I don't think it'd keep me for more than a day.
Anyhoo... TMI bla bla bla, etc... I hope somebody makes the game for you. Closest thing from a grouping standpoint that I've played is AoC after about level 68. Once you get about halfway through Atzels Approach, you pretty much have to group, even on single player quests. The mobs just pile on you; there's no luck just pulling 1 or 2. Or even 3 or 4... but 1-68... mostly single player.
I forgot all about this post but good to see there were plenty of people who posted what I would of said anyways.
Basically the argument I'm seeing on why quests needs to go is because the people who want to grind mobs want to do it in a group, but since there are quests people are off doing those meaning these grinders can't get a group to grind with.
That should basically show you that the majority of the player base does not find grinding mobs fun, so as soon as there's other things to do people no longer grind mobs.
It truly sounds like they want questing for xp gone just so they can force people to do what they want to do. I don't ask for mob xp to go away so that I can force more people to quest. Let people do what they want, if it's something considered fun by a lot of people then there will be a lot of people doing it and you can have fun together.
Also if you do want to group grind mobs then come play Asheron's Call.
I don't do it myself because I prefer questing but this is a game that highly rewards group killing of mobs. There are several dungeons filled 24/7 with people using full groups (9 players) to maximize xp while killing the spawning mobs over and over and over again. You will love it. But this is also a game that offers quests with xp so that might turn you away.
Originally posted by FreddyNoNose Pretty much the people who live in their mother's basements want the mob grind to matter. Losers from the old days of gaming.
Good point. Grinding quests all day is so much more interesting. I mean, there's a cute little blip on your mini-map telling you exactly where to go! How fun and stimulating. And not only that, you get to run around a lot! I have trouble thinking of anything more interesting that running around town looking for peole with a neat exclamation point about their head, clicking on them, saying "ok", then following the arrow telling me exactly where to go and what to do. Run back and forth and back and forth. Kill ten of this and ten of that. Continue running around. Don't ever stop because then you won't be gaining exp. Just keep running and clicking and following your mini-map. Quests are nice because I don't like thinking. Thinking is for losers from the old days of gaming who probably live in their mother's basements.
As we can see from your posting you don't like thinking. That's ok, a really stupid person would reply to this post.
But you're missing his brilliance. The brilliance that:
1. Ignores that many games allow you to turn the guides off, and
2. loves to play the smart card by not wanting games to have built in guides so they can get them at an independent website instead, all the while congratulating themselves on their resourcefulness.
See... the smart guys have the laptop next to their pc's... THOSE guys are the cream of the crop. The uberbright and powerful 'leet...
Come on man. I've been reasonable throughout this discussion until the above poster decided to cast a blanket generalization on people who prefer mobs grinds over quests as basement dweller losers. I only responded to his absurd comment with an equally absurd one of my own. I honestly thought you were reasonable based on your earlier posts, but coming to the defense of FreddyNoNose, with his "thoughtful" one-line posts suggests otherwise.
Perhaps I should have responded to your post directly rather than tack onto D34dly D34dlys...
How is it MORE exciting to NOT have arrows? How is it more exciting to run around a zone killing the same mobs over and over trying to find the quest area? Seems to me that if that were more appealing to people, there'd be an MMO where all you do is look for your car keys...
But either way... people loved that method of gameplay so much that they didn't flock to game guide sites and in some cases, pay subscription fees to access them.
Except they did. People didn't want to spend all their time running around like idiots, and so devs responded. They know how frustrating it is to try to find something that should be right under your nose, as they too have to find their keys in the morning, and also don't find the process very amusing.
Wow, are players as dumb and lazy as that? Lol. No wonder Blizzard had to continually dumb down their PvE content, the type of player who plays WoW can't even find a quest location without having an arrow on their map, what a joke.
Anyway, arrows are a pretty bad idea in an MMORPG. I thought a point of an MMORPG is to roleplay your character. It seems like putting arrows in takes the roleplaying out. You aren't doing any exploration when you have an arrow in an MMORPG. It tells you where to go. Somehow, your character magically knows where something is, without ever having explored that area.. But the person behind the character has never explored that area. So putting an arrow in just takes all of the exploration aspects out of an MMORPG, because the player will always know where they need to go because there's a map showing them.
All you do is look for your car keys? Right.. Maybe if you invested more than 10 minutes per level/area in an MMORPG you would remember where things are and what quests are referring to.
It's too bad that people are so lazy they don't even want to explore MMORPGs anymore. Without exploration, it just makes leveling kind of boring and meaningless. And with the trivialized quest for exp system like in WoW, it makes leveling into running from point A to point B enough times. There is no challenge or thought required in leveling from 0-80 in WoW, because everything is dumbed down so much.
Btw, in EQ you didn't need map sites, or sites to tell you where quests are located, because there werent 5000 quests per city. Leveling was a matter of finding a zone that you liked leveling in and going there. Not, "Find an area with the most meaningless quests"
If you want to know why WoW isnt as "magical" as EQ it is because WoW is so dumbed down that nothing is memorable in the game.
It's too bad that people are so lazy they don't even want to explore MMORPGs anymore. Without exploration, it just makes leveling kind of boring and meaningless. And with the trivialized quest for exp system like in WoW, it makes leveling into running from point A to point B enough times. There is no challenge or thought required in leveling from 0-80 in WoW, because everything is dumbed down so much. Btw, in EQ you didn't need map sites, or sites to tell you where quests are located, because there werent 5000 quests per city. Leveling was a matter of finding a zone that you liked leveling in and going there. Not, "Find an area with the most meaningless quests"
This is a big problem with gaming in general now. People expect to be guided through every thing with no difficulty what so ever. I just don't get how that's entertaining. Sure, you're busy and you don't have time for 8 hour game sessions, guess what, neither do I. 1-4 hours is about all I ever put towards a game session and still, I'd rather log in, explore, get lost, learn for myself, find some challenges. Knocking out a few easy-mode quests is not at all gratifying.
Forget the old school, "hardcore" days. I just want gaming that brings back some mystery and exploration.
Comments
Questing for exp is fine but i do not agree with solo questing to max level then being tossed in to group content, moving from solo play to team work play is to tough for most people, so they just end up quitting and then moving on to the next mmo.
In FFXI from level 10 up it teaches you how to work as a team getting you ready for some of the tough stuff along your journey, yet still has solo gameplay as you wait for a party.
This is what FFXI did right about quests: more for The Reward, The Story, The Fame, Level cap raising quests & quests that open up new Jobs. 0 EXP quests.
No npcs don't have !? over their head, no quest tracker & no wall of text on the dreaded black background - my god that's lame/old and over used by todays mmo's.
Bottom line i don't like western quest driven grinders where solo questing exp/reward is greater then going out seeking for a group playing with others "Forced solo play from level 1 to cap" is today's standards and to be blunt i hate it... really nothing i can do about it...i just don't care anymore.
I suspect, because it's not so much that certain players want the option to play the way they want to play, they just want others to NOT be able to play the way they want to play. Or at best, they see it as some big 'leet epeen talking point like it takes some mad skillz to, in this example, not want quests.
This whole forum is inundated with elitist epeen attitudes...
"I'm da gamin mastah cuz I like ffa pvp"
"I'm da gamin mastah cuz I want huge death penalties"
"I'm da gamin mastah cuz I prefer sandbox games."
IMO it's not to prove what game, or game design is better, it's to prove that that person is a hardcore ultral33t mastah who'd pwn anybody at the nonexistent game they're thinking up in their heads, and that the reason they get pwned in games that actually exist is because there's some game mechanic that gives other gamers an unfair advantage over them.
You know, I could throw insults back at you but I'll try to be reasonable.
I'll be the first to acknowledge that I am not elite and never was in any game. And no, I don't want to force people to play the way I want to play as evidenced by the fact that I never demanded that ALL games must conform to my desires.
Look, understanding my motivations for posting about this stuff is really not complicated. There is no grand conspiracy here. No nefarious plot to deny you and others of your games.
All there is to it is the fact that I want a fun game to play again. The game which is fun for me might not be fun for you but live and let live, right? Do ALL games have to be designed to suit YOU?
And in reply to SnarlingWolf:
People who enjoy the current model of solo questing often seem to think that folks like me can still enjoy the old style gameplay in these new games but it just doesn't work that way. Try to be honest with yourself and think about whether or not it could ever be the same.
Games designed for solo questing are simply not designed for the old style group mob grinding / dungeon crawling game play. The mobs are too weak, the layout is wrong, the pick-up groups aren't there, the death penalty is missing (and yes that does relate to the issue, death penalties are reduced for the soloing games in part to make soloing more feasable by reducing risk).
And even if you disagree with all of that just think about the way things were in early EQ and honestly ask yourself if someone could get the same sort of thing from, say, WoW. The most average, typical day in EQ went like this; log in, decide where you want to go, go there, /shout (class/level) LFG or send a /tell to some group leader who had just /shouted "group looking for more", and usually in just a minute or two you'd be in a group having fun.
It simply doesn't work like that in quest based games and trying to force it to work that way would be an exercise in futility. And even if you did get a group together to go grind mobs it wouldn't be the same sort of thing because you would be killing mobs in a game designed for soloing and not for grouping.
In reply to the notion that people who dislike solo quest grinding want games to be slower to somehow hurt the more casual players:
I don't understand that logic at all. One hour playing is the same length of time whether you are grouping to grind mobs or soloing to grind quests. Putting a group together might take a little time but that is exactly one of the reasons why I want a game which strongly encourages grouping because the more ubiquitous grouping is the faster and easier it is to get into groups.
Also, some people seem to automatically assume that group mob grinding means slower leveling which is not necessarily true. Now I'll admit that I am in favor of slower leveling but then I've never understood why people are in such a rush to hurry through games as quickly as possible. Maybe it's because I don't generally enjoy the "endgame" in games and so I want the leveling phase to last longer. Or maybe it's just because I don't really give a damn about leveling as long as I'm having fun. I've always felt that levels are pretty damn silly to begin with so I guess I just don't understand the obsession with leveling up and the pressing need some people feel to burn through games at warp speed.
FFXI did get it right, offering quests and missions to increase a variety of things and no exp was given. The group focus starting at level 10 all the way through the end prepared you for end game activities and I sure hope the same happens with 14.
Out of all the MMOS I have played recently, the quest/storyline for AoC from 1-20 was probably the best i've seen. You felt the immersion and received exp/rewards. The problem with the game is everything seem to suck after 20. The quests became boring.
I don't understand what you mean. How is an npc telling you to kill x number of beetles any different than you killing x number of beetles .. other than an npc telling you to do so?
So? Does the NPC with a quest stop you from killing beetles on your own initiative? No.
If you want to straight up grind go do it.
If someone else feels like dicing up grinding with some questlines, they have that option.
How does your argument discredit quests? Quests, storylines, story arc, lore, ... all these are just features and options that might help make a game experience richer, and they are all options. You do not need to read any of these. You can just go grind the same mob everyday and do not feel bothered. Options are not compulsory.
For those who care for options, options are improvements, for you they are transparent. Why is it not win win for all.
You just made my point thank you. Most games now reward xp from mainly questing than the monsters you kill. I am only asking that the xp be put on killing the monster rather than the quest turn in. Then we will have what you just said, if you want to to do the quest fine do it, if you want to just kill the monsters and get the same xp then that would be your choice as well.
The choice should be whether or not you want to follow the scripted quest .. not forced questing by putting all the xp rewards on the quest turn in part. The quest could still exist and leveling could be still just as fast but the xp should come from the kills you make not the turn in. That way quest are optional for people that like an npc telling them to kill X number of Ys. The reward could be extra gold or the an item for the quest. Let people have the freedom to choose.
So you are wrong, they are not optional in most games today. Quest are where the bulk of the xp is coming from. A person just killing monsters in most modern games will level much slower than someone questing and people that decide to make their own adventures should be able to without penalty.
I don't understand what you mean. How is an npc telling you to kill x number of beetles any different than you killing x number of beetles .. other than an npc telling you to do so?
So? Does the NPC with a quest stop you from killing beetles on your own initiative? No.
If you want to straight up grind go do it.
If someone else feels like dicing up grinding with some questlines, they have that option.
How does your argument discredit quests? Quests, storylines, story arc, lore, ... all these are just features and options that might help make a game experience richer, and they are all options. You do not need to read any of these. You can just go grind the same mob everyday and do not feel bothered. Options are not compulsory.
For those who care for options, options are improvements, for you they are transparent. Why is it not win win for all.
You just made my point thank you. Most games now reward xp from mainly questing than the monsters you kill. I am only asking that the xp be put on killing the monster rather than the quest turn in. Then we will have what you just said, if you want to to do the quest fine do it, if you want to just kill the monsters and get the same xp then that would be your choice as well.
The choice should be whether or not you want to follow the scripted quest .. not forced questing by putting all the xp rewards on the quest turn in part. The quest could still exist and leveling could be still just as fast but the xp should come from the kills you make not the turn in. That way quest are optional for people that like an npc telling them to kill X number of Ys. The reward could be extra gold or the an item for the quest. Let people have the freedom to choose.
So you are wrong, they are not optional in most games today. Quest are where the bulk of the xp is coming from. A person just killing monsters in most modern games will level much slower than someone questing and people that decide to make their own adventures should be able to without penalty.
This would only work in a sandbox-style environment. What you are basically describing is how SWG used to be - the quests (i.e. missions) were pretty much inconsequential but provided a little extra cash than pure grinding did.
I don't understand what you mean. How is an npc telling you to kill x number of beetles any different than you killing x number of beetles .. other than an npc telling you to do so?
So? Does the NPC with a quest stop you from killing beetles on your own initiative? No.
If you want to straight up grind go do it.
If someone else feels like dicing up grinding with some questlines, they have that option.
How does your argument discredit quests? Quests, storylines, story arc, lore, ... all these are just features and options that might help make a game experience richer, and they are all options. You do not need to read any of these. You can just go grind the same mob everyday and do not feel bothered. Options are not compulsory.
For those who care for options, options are improvements, for you they are transparent. Why is it not win win for all.
You just made my point thank you. Most games now reward xp from mainly questing than the monsters you kill. I am only asking that the xp be put on killing the monster rather than the quest turn in. Then we will have what you just said, if you want to to do the quest fine do it, if you want to just kill the monsters and get the same xp then that would be your choice as well.
The choice should be whether or not you want to follow the scripted quest .. not forced questing by putting all the xp rewards on the quest turn in part. The quest could still exist and leveling could be still just as fast but the xp should come from the kills you make not the turn in. That way quest are optional for people that like an npc telling them to kill X number of Ys. The reward could be extra gold or the an item for the quest. Let people have the freedom to choose.
So you are wrong, they are not optional in most games today. Quest are where the bulk of the xp is coming from. A person just killing monsters in most modern games will level much slower than someone questing and people that decide to make their own adventures should be able to without penalty.
That, is a load of crap. Or you're playing a horrible MMO. Or you haven't bothered to try to figure out how to best get XP in your current MMO.
Currently, XP comes from both, at least in my most current example, LotRO. CoX was also the case.
In LotRO, you have to kill about 8-13 same level mobs to get the same XP as from a same level quest. This isn't difficult to do in the amount of time it takes to run back to the quest giver, and come back to the field. Most of the quest rewards are inferior to crafted and reputation items, so it ends up as vendor trash. The coin you get for the quest is dismal compared to the loot from 8-13 mobs.
The payoff largely breaks out even. The exception to that is if you're out in the field chasing blue or green mobs, opposed to turning in 3-4 quests at a time. Blue/green don't get you much, and shouldn't. You have to go where the mobs are actually a challenge. Join up with someone and go after reds. THAT is the ultimate XP grind.
LotRO even rewards the grinding style of gameplay for those that prefer it. Many deeds you get are from killing some 100-500 of the same mob in a zone, and the deed gives you bonuses to combat specs and skills. Not to mention, the deed gives you XP; you automatically start earning the deed when you kill the first mob, and automatically get the deed and XP when you kill the last. No quest giver involved.
In CoX, for max XP to time, it's common knowledge that you should "farm" out an instance that is mob intensive. In other words, don't leave it until you've completely wiped all the mobs out. Now, if the quest rewards far outweighed the XP from mobs, why would you do this instead of finishing ASAP and moving on to the next mission? Especially in a game that's nowhere near as loot based as other MMO's?
Yours is a false assumption feeding on the "evidence" that the XP bar hardly moves when you kill a mob, but moves significantly when you complete a quest. But time/XP is largely the same. Matter of fact, the fastest I lvl'ed in LotRO was being in a group in Goblin Town, mowing down Gobs and Trolls left and right. I was there for hours and completed maybe 2-3 quests. Lvl'ed twice.
Now where your half right is in this: If ALL you do is quests, or ALL you do is grind, you won't get as much XP as someone who does a combination of BOTH. But to say that doing simply one or the other is not viable, is absolute nonsense, in my examples.
In the end, the only way to do what you suggest is to make questing LESS rewarding than grinding. This would be MMO suicide, as most people don't LIKE grinding and therefore most people wouldn't be playing in a way that they would enjoy. Sooner than later, they'd quit.
I love quest reward exp. I like to have a reason to be killing the mobs other than do the old EQ method of standing in a spot for hours killing the same mobs over and over until people come and try to steal your camp.
WoW did it the best, solo or group quest if you want. Instances at all levels no problem. Honestly I can't believe this topic keeps coming up. If you don't want to quest for xp don't do it!! go freaking grind all you want. Go play Aion, or the other bunch of games that are strictly boring stupid grinding.
Anytime I have to watch t.v. to keep myself from getting bored of grinding the game is crap in my eyes.
I suspect, because it's not so much that certain players want the option to play the way they want to play, they just want others to NOT be able to play the way they want to play. Or at best, they see it as some big 'leet epeen talking point like it takes some mad skillz to, in this example, not want quests.
This whole forum is inundated with elitist epeen attitudes...
"I'm da gamin mastah cuz I like ffa pvp"
"I'm da gamin mastah cuz I want huge death penalties"
"I'm da gamin mastah cuz I prefer sandbox games."
IMO it's not to prove what game, or game design is better, it's to prove that that person is a hardcore ultral33t mastah who'd pwn anybody at the nonexistent game they're thinking up in their heads, and that the reason they get pwned in games that actually exist is because there's some game mechanic that gives other gamers an unfair advantage over them.
You know, I could throw insults back at you but I'll try to be reasonable.
I'll be the first to acknowledge that I am not elite and never was in any game. And no, I don't want to force people to play the way I want to play as evidenced by the fact that I never demanded that ALL games must conform to my desires.
Look, understanding my motivations for posting about this stuff is really not complicated. There is no grand conspiracy here. No nefarious plot to deny you and others of your games.
All there is to it is the fact that I want a fun game to play again. The game which is fun for me might not be fun for you but live and let live, right? Do ALL games have to be designed to suit YOU?
Nope. That's why I'm not calling for anyones game to be changed, and/or criticizing a current trend in gaming that is bringing more and more people to the genre. Nor am I over in UO's forums saying: "Grind-for-Exp is stupid".
Exactly, how is "just wanting a fun game to play again" match up with the thread title: "Quest-for-Exp is stupid"?
A game doesn't require quests for me to enjoy it. I played Eve for some time in 2005 and enjoyed it. I played pre-NGE SWG and enjoyed it. Now I play games with missions and quests and enjoy them. I'm not so much interested in the game mechanic as I am in the freedom to CHOOSE how to advance my character. My current game, LotRO gives me that, while having an overfull line of quests along with it. In no way do I feel "forced" to do the quests. Matter of fact, I find myself deleting many of them because I've already advanced past them, due to "grinding mobs" and now skirmishes.
And in reply to SnarlingWolf:
People who enjoy the current model of solo questing often seem to think that folks like me can still enjoy the old style gameplay in these new games but it just doesn't work that way. Try to be honest with yourself and think about whether or not it could ever be the same.
Games designed for solo questing are simply not designed for the old style group mob grinding / dungeon crawling game play. The mobs are too weak, the layout is wrong, the pick-up groups aren't there, the death penalty is missing (and yes that does relate to the issue, death penalties are reduced for the soloing games in part to make soloing more feasable by reducing risk).
1. If it's "too easy", go to a more difficult area.
2. How does a stiff death penalty "add" to grouping? All it does is make you less valuable to the group if you die.
And even if you disagree with all of that just think about the way things were in early EQ and honestly ask yourself if someone could get the same sort of thing from, say, WoW.
No. Thank GOD. If it were superior to WoW, people would be playing it.
In reply to the notion that people who dislike solo quest grinding want games to be slower to somehow hurt the more casual players:
I don't understand that logic at all. One hour playing is the same length of time whether you are grouping to grind mobs or soloing to grind quests. Putting a group together might take a little time but that is exactly one of the reasons why I want a game which strongly encourages grouping because the more ubiquitous grouping is the faster and easier it is to get into groups.
I've never played a game that doesn't encourage grouping. XP bonuses, elite mobs, big ticket loot only in group quests and raids, higher XP for red mobs and lower XP for blues/greens... if this isn't enough, then that says more about the basic social element than it does about the game.
But you're not talking about "encouraging" grouping if you expect it to be "ubiquitous", you're talking about FORCING grouping. Which is what you do if you make it to where 1 person can't make it through through a same level zone on their own. Most people prefer to function on their own much of the time(in reality and MMO's), and group together for certain things for the betterment of all. Imagine society if we had to have another person around to do 90% of what we do on a given day. It simply wouldn't work.
Also, some people seem to automatically assume that group mob grinding means slower leveling which is not necessarily true. Now I'll admit that I am in favor of slower leveling but then I've never understood why people are in such a rush to hurry through games as quickly as possible. Maybe it's because I don't generally enjoy the "endgame" in games and so I want the leveling phase to last longer. Or maybe it's just because I don't really give a damn about leveling as long as I'm having fun. I've always felt that levels are pretty damn silly to begin with so I guess I just don't understand the obsession with leveling up and the pressing need some people feel to burn through games at warp speed.
It means slower leveling due to increased downtime.
1. Hunting for a group or starting a group.
2. Waiting for everyone to get properly geared up and take care of inventory issues.
3. Getting everyone to the zone.
4. Replacing the people that had to quit while you were waiting.
5. Waiting for the new people to do steps 2 and 3.
Many games accomodate this in a number of ways, via portals and summon horns, which is good. The leets then accuse those games of being "care bear"... "teleports totally blow the immersion, dude... make the world seem small"
I'm not in a hurry either; slower advancement isn't an issue for me, it's WAITING with nothing to do that's an issue for me. For me, waiting 15-20 minutes in an MMO is slightly more interesting than waiting in line 15-20 minutes at the supermarket. SLIGHTLY more interesting...
....blah blah blah
These pissing contests are so pointless. Should I spend more time going through it all point by point just so you can come back and do the same again and then I do it again and then you, then me, then you, and we keep going around in circles?
Look, I'm using EQ as my example because honestly it was the game I had the most fun in. That's not to say it was perfect. I had plenty of complaints about it and, hell, I used to bitch about mob grinding myself. But when I bitched about it I assumed that someday we would have something better. To me...just speaking for myself...solo quest grinding is far worse. I also used to spend a lot of time thinking about the elusive DREAM GAME which in my mind is not much like EQ at all but that's just my idle fantasy and it will never happen. So when it comes to the basic day to day gameplay if I were given a choice between EQ style play and WoW style play I would choose EQ style, the way it was at low to mid levels in the first two or three years. Unfortunately it no longer exists.
Now what you and others are doing is basically telling me and others that we can still get EQ (or other games) style of play in these newer games. But no matter what you say we know we can't. And I'm sure that you know it as well. If we could get it then WoW and other games of it's ilk would be just like EQ and they clearly are not. You know they are not because you say that WoW is better, you point out what you see as flaws with older games which don't exist in newer games, and so on. So you obviously see that there is a difference. You understand that they are not the same.
And yet, while pointing out the differences in old and new games you will at same time tell people that they are the same by claiming they can get the same sort of gameplay from the new games. Clearly they cannot be different and identical at the same time. You know that, I know that, everyone who has posted in this thread knows it.
Good point. Grinding quests all day is so much more interesting. I mean, there's a cute little blip on your mini-map telling you exactly where to go! How fun and stimulating. And not only that, you get to run around a lot! I have trouble thinking of anything more interesting that running around town looking for peole with a neat exclamation point about their head, clicking on them, saying "ok", then following the arrow telling me exactly where to go and what to do. Run back and forth and back and forth. Kill ten of this and ten of that. Continue running around. Don't ever stop because then you won't be gaining exp. Just keep running and clicking and following your mini-map. Quests are nice because I don't like thinking. Thinking is for losers from the old days of gaming who probably live in their mother's basements.
As we can see from your posting you don't like thinking. That's ok, a really stupid person would reply to this post.
But you're missing his brilliance. The brilliance that:
1. Ignores that many games allow you to turn the guides off, and
2. loves to play the smart card by not wanting games to have built in guides so they can get them at an independent website instead, all the while congratulating themselves on their resourcefulness.
See... the smart guys have the laptop next to their pc's... THOSE guys are the cream of the crop. The uberbright and powerful 'leet...
Come on man. I've been reasonable throughout this discussion until the above poster decided to cast a blanket generalization on people who prefer mobs grinds over quests as basement dweller losers. I only responded to his absurd comment with an equally absurd one of my own. I honestly thought you were reasonable based on your earlier posts, but coming to the defense of FreddyNoNose, with his "thoughtful" one-line posts suggests otherwise.
Perhaps I should have responded to your post directly rather than tack onto D34dly D34dlys...
How is it MORE exciting to NOT have arrows? How is it more exciting to run around a zone killing the same mobs over and over trying to find the quest area? Seems to me that if that were more appealing to people, there'd be an MMO where all you do is look for your car keys...
But either way... people loved that method of gameplay so much that they didn't flock to game guide sites and in some cases, pay subscription fees to access them.
Except they did. People didn't want to spend all their time running around like idiots, and so devs responded. They know how frustrating it is to try to find something that should be right under your nose, as they too have to find their keys in the morning, and also don't find the process very amusing.
....blah blah blah
These pissing contests are so pointless. Should I spend more time going through it all point by point just so you can come back and do the same again and then I do it again and then you, then me, then you, and we keep going around in circles?
Look, I'm using EQ as my example because honestly it was the game I had the most fun in. That's not to say it was perfect. I had plenty of complaints about it and, hell, I used to bitch about mob grinding myself. But when I bitched about it I assumed that someday we would have something better. To me...just speaking for myself...solo quest grinding is far worse. I also used to spend a lot of time thinking about the elusive DREAM GAME which in my mind is not much like EQ at all but that's just my idle fantasy and it will never happen. So when it comes to the basic day to day gameplay if I were given a choice between EQ style play and WoW style play I would choose EQ style, the way it was at low to mid levels in the first two or three years. Unfortunately it no longer exists.
Now what you and others are doing is basically telling me and others that we can still get EQ (or other games) style of play in these newer games. But no matter what you say we know we can't. (wow... there's some nihilism for ya)And I'm sure that you know it as well. If we could get it then WoW and other games of it's ilk would be just like EQ and they clearly are not. (If you want an EQ style of gameplay, go play EQ. Folks complain of WoW clones, but you seem to think EQ clones would be a good thing? I doubt even EQ devs would agree with you.)
You know they are not because you say that WoW is better, you point out what you see as flaws with older games which don't exist in newer games, and so on. So you obviously see that there is a difference. You understand that they are not the same.(absolutely. They took many of the good things, removed the obvious bad things, and still provided a means for people to play the old way. In the development world, that's called "legacy coding". Being able to emote, use text scripts and what not through the chat panel are one example. Control-S to save in Word. If someone wants to ctrl-s and someone else wants to click save, they both can do it. If I want to grab a guildie or 2 and head to Angmar 5 levels early, I can do it. Lots of fun, too)
And yet, while pointing out the differences in old and new games you will at same time tell people that they are the same by claiming they can get the same sort of gameplay from the new games. Clearly they cannot be different and identical at the same time. You know that, I know that, everyone who has posted in this thread knows it. (No, I don't say the games "are the same". They aren't. That's why I'm playing LotRO and not EQ. What a silly black and white argument. "It's different. It's not identical. Therefore I can't play the way I want to." It would be profoundly stupid for a developer to make the same game that was made years ago. Why do you even bother looking for a new game?)
Your point is taken. And in my opinion, solo "grinding" is not worse, and in my examples, not necessary. You insist it is, and I disagree.
I don't recall telling you you could have an "EQ style of gameplay"; perhaps someone else did. But what I AM saying is that you can, in LotRO, group with others, wander into an elite zone around your level, or a normal zone 3-4 levels higher, and have a great experience while getting lots of experience; likely more than you could questing by yourself.
This certainly is the case in CoX. XP in groups comes MUCH faster in CoX grouped than solo, and you can control precisely how difficult your mobs will be.
After reading this, I can't help but think that what you demand has nothing to do with gameplay. Perhaps you just want those old experiences and feelings back that you had with a game that was one of the first graphic massive multiplayer games ever made. Perhaps you were in an awesome guild or had some friends that have since moved on to play something else, or left the gaming world altogether. These things, like the wild college days, eventually come to an end.
That's just not something any new game will be able to give you.
Nobody said that explicitly but it's what you guys keep implying. You all keep saying we can still play the way we want if we just go and do it, nobody is stopping us. You just did it again in your last post when you said, "....and still provided a means for people to play the old way."
Well, ok, it's true that we could try to play new games as if they were the same as older games but they still wouldn't be the same. I could also dress up like a cowboy, hop on a horse, and ride through the plains pretending it's the 1860's but just because I did that it wouldn't suddenly transform that part of the country back to what it was in the wild west days. I could try to pretend that it's the same but the inescapable reality would be that it's not.
And you know I probably would go back to EQ if they hadn't changed it and f-ed it up so much. But there is another inescapable reality, it's just not the same game anymore. And if truth be told I would prefer a new game to a old game anyway if for no other reason than to have a fresh start at the begining. Maybe I'm a terrible, evil person for wanting that but if that's the case I'll just have to accept my inherantly evil nature.
Also, I'm not saying I want a game exactly like EQ was back then, god forbid, because there were some things I really hated about it. But I wish someone would try to take the best part of it which was the leveling phase from low to mid levels in the first few years and make a new game based primarily on that. It wouldn't be my dream game but at least I could have fun in it.
I like quests/missions that only give currency or fame/reputation with a faction.
I think gear should be given by crafters and XP by mobs and completing actions (crafting/gathering something).
This doesn't put all the focus on quests, it keeps them valuable but makes crafting and exploring/hunting viable also.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
Also, I'm not saying I want a game exactly like EQ was back then, god forbid, because there were some things I really hated about it. But I wish someone would try to take the best part of it which was the leveling phase from low to mid levels in the first few years and make a new game based primarily on that. It wouldn't be my dream game but at least I could have fun in it.
Well, I hope you find it, seriously. I don't think it's "evil" to want a game like that, but wanting such a game and wanting someone to change a game that's not that to one that is is an issue. I know that's not what you're saying, but others have.
I think you know that in order to get exactly what you want, you have to prevent many others from playing the way they want to. LotRO, IMO, offers players a choice, even though you may feel it's a false one. Really, the only way to get what you want without kicking solo'ers to the curb is to create a skirmish type experience, or whole, out of the way zones in which the mobs are such that you cannot pass through alone. And given the amount of data devs and directors have to sift through for their game; what quests players do and don't do, how often people group and don't group, etc... there's probably be a pretty clear picture to direct their efforts.
I haven't played Everquest in a long long long long time, so I don't know much about how it's changed. I recall it seeming tedious, IMO, which is ironic since I had been playing a MUD called DragonRealms for years, featuring potential permadeath and a lvling system that after several years, no one had maxed. Tried UO on a free server; that seemed even worse, back again I went to DragonRealms. My first graphic mainstay MMO would become SWG. I loved it, but if I had pre-NGE back, I don't think it'd keep me for more than a day.
Anyhoo... TMI bla bla bla, etc... I hope somebody makes the game for you. Closest thing from a grouping standpoint that I've played is AoC after about level 68. Once you get about halfway through Atzels Approach, you pretty much have to group, even on single player quests. The mobs just pile on you; there's no luck just pulling 1 or 2. Or even 3 or 4... but 1-68... mostly single player.
I forgot all about this post but good to see there were plenty of people who posted what I would of said anyways.
Basically the argument I'm seeing on why quests needs to go is because the people who want to grind mobs want to do it in a group, but since there are quests people are off doing those meaning these grinders can't get a group to grind with.
That should basically show you that the majority of the player base does not find grinding mobs fun, so as soon as there's other things to do people no longer grind mobs.
It truly sounds like they want questing for xp gone just so they can force people to do what they want to do. I don't ask for mob xp to go away so that I can force more people to quest. Let people do what they want, if it's something considered fun by a lot of people then there will be a lot of people doing it and you can have fun together.
Also if you do want to group grind mobs then come play Asheron's Call.
I don't do it myself because I prefer questing but this is a game that highly rewards group killing of mobs. There are several dungeons filled 24/7 with people using full groups (9 players) to maximize xp while killing the spawning mobs over and over and over again. You will love it. But this is also a game that offers quests with xp so that might turn you away.
Its not about taking away from questers and forcing to play our game its about balance.
Find a way where all activities are equal when it comes to leveling.
In a game with XP quest rewards often its the best way to level and this takes away from exploration and hunting.
Find a balance and everyone is happy.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
Good point. Grinding quests all day is so much more interesting. I mean, there's a cute little blip on your mini-map telling you exactly where to go! How fun and stimulating. And not only that, you get to run around a lot! I have trouble thinking of anything more interesting that running around town looking for peole with a neat exclamation point about their head, clicking on them, saying "ok", then following the arrow telling me exactly where to go and what to do. Run back and forth and back and forth. Kill ten of this and ten of that. Continue running around. Don't ever stop because then you won't be gaining exp. Just keep running and clicking and following your mini-map. Quests are nice because I don't like thinking. Thinking is for losers from the old days of gaming who probably live in their mother's basements.
As we can see from your posting you don't like thinking. That's ok, a really stupid person would reply to this post.
But you're missing his brilliance. The brilliance that:
1. Ignores that many games allow you to turn the guides off, and
2. loves to play the smart card by not wanting games to have built in guides so they can get them at an independent website instead, all the while congratulating themselves on their resourcefulness.
See... the smart guys have the laptop next to their pc's... THOSE guys are the cream of the crop. The uberbright and powerful 'leet...
Come on man. I've been reasonable throughout this discussion until the above poster decided to cast a blanket generalization on people who prefer mobs grinds over quests as basement dweller losers. I only responded to his absurd comment with an equally absurd one of my own. I honestly thought you were reasonable based on your earlier posts, but coming to the defense of FreddyNoNose, with his "thoughtful" one-line posts suggests otherwise.
Perhaps I should have responded to your post directly rather than tack onto D34dly D34dlys...
How is it MORE exciting to NOT have arrows? How is it more exciting to run around a zone killing the same mobs over and over trying to find the quest area? Seems to me that if that were more appealing to people, there'd be an MMO where all you do is look for your car keys...
But either way... people loved that method of gameplay so much that they didn't flock to game guide sites and in some cases, pay subscription fees to access them.
Except they did. People didn't want to spend all their time running around like idiots, and so devs responded. They know how frustrating it is to try to find something that should be right under your nose, as they too have to find their keys in the morning, and also don't find the process very amusing.
Wow, are players as dumb and lazy as that? Lol. No wonder Blizzard had to continually dumb down their PvE content, the type of player who plays WoW can't even find a quest location without having an arrow on their map, what a joke.
Anyway, arrows are a pretty bad idea in an MMORPG. I thought a point of an MMORPG is to roleplay your character. It seems like putting arrows in takes the roleplaying out. You aren't doing any exploration when you have an arrow in an MMORPG. It tells you where to go. Somehow, your character magically knows where something is, without ever having explored that area.. But the person behind the character has never explored that area. So putting an arrow in just takes all of the exploration aspects out of an MMORPG, because the player will always know where they need to go because there's a map showing them.
All you do is look for your car keys? Right.. Maybe if you invested more than 10 minutes per level/area in an MMORPG you would remember where things are and what quests are referring to.
It's too bad that people are so lazy they don't even want to explore MMORPGs anymore. Without exploration, it just makes leveling kind of boring and meaningless. And with the trivialized quest for exp system like in WoW, it makes leveling into running from point A to point B enough times. There is no challenge or thought required in leveling from 0-80 in WoW, because everything is dumbed down so much.
Btw, in EQ you didn't need map sites, or sites to tell you where quests are located, because there werent 5000 quests per city. Leveling was a matter of finding a zone that you liked leveling in and going there. Not, "Find an area with the most meaningless quests"
If you want to know why WoW isnt as "magical" as EQ it is because WoW is so dumbed down that nothing is memorable in the game.
This is a big problem with gaming in general now. People expect to be guided through every thing with no difficulty what so ever. I just don't get how that's entertaining. Sure, you're busy and you don't have time for 8 hour game sessions, guess what, neither do I. 1-4 hours is about all I ever put towards a game session and still, I'd rather log in, explore, get lost, learn for myself, find some challenges. Knocking out a few easy-mode quests is not at all gratifying.
Forget the old school, "hardcore" days. I just want gaming that brings back some mystery and exploration.
Agreed.
I prefer character progression through repetition, like in real life.
The generic value of "experience" for the linearly scripted quests is stupid. Agreed.