Honestly though, people rushed in EQ as well. There have always been rushers, my brother is one of them. The big difference is, instead of doing dungeons and quests, they were just sitting there camping a spawn over and over and over.
I remember my brother playing is Ogre shaman, sitting at a guard spawn killing the same guy over and over and over again, he must have spent 40+ hours just killing this guy. He used to log out by the spawn and log back in just to start killing him again.
That might have been slow, but doesn't mean it was more fun. But he wanted to be the best...
I played EQ everyday for 4+ hours a day afetr work. Did that for a bit over a year before it tappered off a bit. But even then it STILL took me a year to reach lvl 65.
In today's MMO's I can reach lvl 65 in as little as 2 weeks...without even playing but a few days a week for a couple of hours a day. I did Rift beta and even though I mainly spent the time actualyl testing...unlike so many others...I still got to lvl 38 in a couple of weeks and saw all but 4 zones. Why I am not playing it now. Besides seeing so much bfore release, the Rift invasions were all the same and not very exciting after the first few. They needed more variety and soem rare spawns coming from them or something.
Honestly though, people rushed in EQ as well. There have always been rushers, my brother is one of them. The big difference is, instead of doing dungeons and quests, they were just sitting there camping a spawn over and over and over.
I remember my brother playing is Ogre shaman, sitting at a guard spawn killing the same guy over and over and over again, he must have spent 40+ hours just killing this guy. He used to log out by the spawn and log back in just to start killing him again.
That might have been slow, but doesn't mean it was more fun. But he wanted to be the best...
Yes but everquest was not built around that mindset, new mmorpg are. You get achievements for fastest time to do this and that and therefore people rush to have a world or server first. So modern mmo games are designed around rushing
Honestly though, people rushed in EQ as well. There have always been rushers, my brother is one of them. The big difference is, instead of doing dungeons and quests, they were just sitting there camping a spawn over and over and over.
I remember my brother playing is Ogre shaman, sitting at a guard spawn killing the same guy over and over and over again, he must have spent 40+ hours just killing this guy. He used to log out by the spawn and log back in just to start killing him again.
That might have been slow, but doesn't mean it was more fun. But he wanted to be the best...
Yes but everquest was not built around that mindset, new mmorpg are. You get achievements for fastest time to do this and that and therefore people rush to have a world or server first. So modern mmo games are design around rushing
Exactly.
Also, EQ and UO were made for exploration and adventure and COMMUNITY. And dev's used innovation and creativity and made profit on the side (Meaning made profit as intended but enjoyed creating as well). Now it is the opposite. The dev's lazily cram lifeless content in to keep the masses that don't know any better occupied to maximize profit with little effort and actual creativity put forth.
Honestly though, people rushed in EQ as well. There have always been rushers, my brother is one of them. The big difference is, instead of doing dungeons and quests, they were just sitting there camping a spawn over and over and over.
I remember my brother playing is Ogre shaman, sitting at a guard spawn killing the same guy over and over and over again, he must have spent 40+ hours just killing this guy. He used to log out by the spawn and log back in just to start killing him again.
That might have been slow, but doesn't mean it was more fun. But he wanted to be the best...
Yes but everquest was not built around that mindset, new mmorpg are. You get achievements for fastest time to do this and that and therefore people rush to have a world or server first. So modern mmo games are design around rushing
That's kinda strange because Vanguard was the last mmorpg that I played that had FIRST discoveries and leveling was fairly slow.
Honestly though, people rushed in EQ as well. There have always been rushers, my brother is one of them. The big difference is, instead of doing dungeons and quests, they were just sitting there camping a spawn over and over and over.
I remember my brother playing is Ogre shaman, sitting at a guard spawn killing the same guy over and over and over again, he must have spent 40+ hours just killing this guy. He used to log out by the spawn and log back in just to start killing him again.
That might have been slow, but doesn't mean it was more fun. But he wanted to be the best...
Yes but everquest was not built around that mindset, new mmorpg are. You get achievements for fastest time to do this and that and therefore people rush to have a world or server first. So modern mmo games are design around rushing
Thats kinda strange because Vangaurd was the last mmorpg that I played that had FIRST discoveries and leveling was fairly slow..
I'm pretty sure wow and everquest 2 had them before vanguard. People who played vanguard generally didn't have a rushing mindset the game was designed for the old school.
Honestly though, people rushed in EQ as well. There have always been rushers, my brother is one of them. The big difference is, instead of doing dungeons and quests, they were just sitting there camping a spawn over and over and over.
I remember my brother playing is Ogre shaman, sitting at a guard spawn killing the same guy over and over and over again, he must have spent 40+ hours just killing this guy. He used to log out by the spawn and log back in just to start killing him again.
That might have been slow, but doesn't mean it was more fun. But he wanted to be the best...
Yes but everquest was not built around that mindset, new mmorpg are. You get achievements for fastest time to do this and that and therefore people rush to have a world or server first. So modern mmo games are design around rushing
That's kinda strange because Vanguard was the last mmorpg that I played that had FIRST discoveries and leveling was fairly slow.
Maby beacuse VG was designed oldschool from the start in a sea of clones.
MMORPG'S are not virtual worlds anymore they are games filled with anti-social features such as leaderboards, achievements and solo quests which all focus on individual success, other players just get in your way while you quest so screw them right????. These games are designed from the start to be anti-social.
I agree. I would also add that "levels" themselves are part of the problem. A level based advancement system caters to the "rush" mentality as it creates an easy comparison system which a player can say they are "better" than another player. A skill based system (like EvE), while not completely immune to the comparison problem, mitigates the desire for everyone to rush to the level cap and be the best.
Just my incoherent 2 cents...
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true...
Problem is class based games (ie. EQ) do not offer enough mini milestones to keep you feel like you are progressing consistantly. Grinding for days just to game a single level with no change sucks.
Honestly though, people rushed in EQ as well. There have always been rushers, my brother is one of them. The big difference is, instead of doing dungeons and quests, they were just sitting there camping a spawn over and over and over.
I remember my brother playing is Ogre shaman, sitting at a guard spawn killing the same guy over and over and over again, he must have spent 40+ hours just killing this guy. He used to log out by the spawn and log back in just to start killing him again.
That might have been slow, but doesn't mean it was more fun. But he wanted to be the best...
Yes but everquest was not built around that mindset, new mmorpg are. You get achievements for fastest time to do this and that and therefore people rush to have a world or server first. So modern mmo games are design around rushing
Thats kinda strange because Vangaurd was the last mmorpg that I played that had FIRST discoveries and leveling was fairly slow..
I'm pretty sure wow and everquest 2 had them before vanguard. People who played vanguard generally didn't have a rushing mindset the game was designed for the old school.
Ok so you are saying WoW and EQ2 started the rush to cap mindset but then it ended shortly after?
Honestly though, people rushed in EQ as well. There have always been rushers, my brother is one of them. The big difference is, instead of doing dungeons and quests, they were just sitting there camping a spawn over and over and over.
I remember my brother playing is Ogre shaman, sitting at a guard spawn killing the same guy over and over and over again, he must have spent 40+ hours just killing this guy. He used to log out by the spawn and log back in just to start killing him again.
That might have been slow, but doesn't mean it was more fun. But he wanted to be the best...
Yes but everquest was not built around that mindset, new mmorpg are. You get achievements for fastest time to do this and that and therefore people rush to have a world or server first. So modern mmo games are designed around rushing
At the same time, i feel like modern MMOs are built around more fun too. Think about it, was camping the same mob over and over to get through a hell level really that fun? My brother stayed online for an entire 24 hours once camping one mob so he could get a robe to drop, was it fun? It didn't look like it.
But that "Gotta have it" achievement mindset was the driving force behind EQ. EQ may not have been built around rushing but it was built around grinding, which is the same thing but slower.
Was waiting for 20 minutes starring into your spell book while your mana refilled a fun experience? Did that improve the gameplay? Are we rushing through that now by having faster regeneration on mana?
I miss the exploration of EQ a lot, original EQ, modern EQ is worse than WoW with their stupid Planes of Portals or whatever. EQ had a great world, that felt big and dangerous, it has a lot to miss. But the grind was not one of them. Trying to get a group for an hour, was not one of them.
It may have been slower, but the grind wasnt better.
There's so much in this thread that I'd agree with, I'd double the thread length if I quoted it all.
Originally posted by Creslin321
<kersnip>
Anyway, I admit that old school MMORPGs were not perfect. While some players may have enjoyed their open-ended nature, other players found themselves lost and unable to find any direction. And that is the large reason why WoW created the "quest-node" leveling model. It gives you something to do and it's extremely accessible.
<kersnip>
I had to comment on this snippet. WoW might have introduced / popularized the "quest node", I don't know that players feeling lost or confused was the actual reason for this. In the early EQ days, there was a lot of hue and cry about how little experience that quests gave in EQ1. The Sony boards were flooded almost every week with multiple 'Its Ever QUEST, so let the quests be worth more XP' threads. The players wanted more experience from the various quests and tasks they ran. In the early days, the quests in EQ were abysmal -- the XP reward was far less than killing 1 of the 10 rats the quest asked you to kill.
I've always seen the quest node as an overreaction to the paltry quest rewards of other games. Starting with the second wave of MMOs (DAoC and others), the quest rewards were about equal to the XP from the 10 rats. WoW came along and upped the quest XP again, rewarding from 1.5x to 2.0x the XP than the 10 rats gave. Almost every game since has followed WoW's lead -- conquering 10 rats is worth more than the cumulative XP of the rats alone.
Part of this trend. I think, was an effort to reduce the 'grind'. If a level in EQ required you do kill 1000 rats, WoW would require only 250 rats to die at your hands, as long as you did the quest. The pure, original 'grind' of killing umpty-zillion rats transformed itself into the 'quest grind'. This mode of play suppliments the XP by requiring a player to speak to the correct NPC before starting the rat exterminations.
So while I agree that the 'quest node' model may help clueless players find their way around the game world, I'm not entirely certain that helping players was the primary motivation for this model.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Honestly though, people rushed in EQ as well. There have always been rushers, my brother is one of them. The big difference is, instead of doing dungeons and quests, they were just sitting there camping a spawn over and over and over.
I remember my brother playing is Ogre shaman, sitting at a guard spawn killing the same guy over and over and over again, he must have spent 40+ hours just killing this guy. He used to log out by the spawn and log back in just to start killing him again.
That might have been slow, but doesn't mean it was more fun. But he wanted to be the best...
Yes but everquest was not built around that mindset, new mmorpg are. You get achievements for fastest time to do this and that and therefore people rush to have a world or server first. So modern mmo games are design around rushing
That's kinda strange because Vanguard was the last mmorpg that I played that had FIRST discoveries and leveling was fairly slow.
Maby beacuse VG was designed oldschool from the start in a sea of clones.
Hence why I still play it even with its small active player base...
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true...
Honestly though, people rushed in EQ as well. There have always been rushers, my brother is one of them. The big difference is, instead of doing dungeons and quests, they were just sitting there camping a spawn over and over and over.
I remember my brother playing is Ogre shaman, sitting at a guard spawn killing the same guy over and over and over again, he must have spent 40+ hours just killing this guy. He used to log out by the spawn and log back in just to start killing him again.
That might have been slow, but doesn't mean it was more fun. But he wanted to be the best...
Yes but everquest was not built around that mindset, new mmorpg are. You get achievements for fastest time to do this and that and therefore people rush to have a world or server first. So modern mmo games are design around rushing
Thats kinda strange because Vangaurd was the last mmorpg that I played that had FIRST discoveries and leveling was fairly slow..
I'm pretty sure wow and everquest 2 had them before vanguard. People who played vanguard generally didn't have a rushing mindset the game was designed for the old school.
Ok so you are saying WoW and EQ2 started the rush to cap mindset but then it ended shortly after?
Actually EQ2 when it first launched, was a lot harder and slower. It was largely group based content, they redesigned it based on feedback.
Honestly though, people rushed in EQ as well. There have always been rushers, my brother is one of them. The big difference is, instead of doing dungeons and quests, they were just sitting there camping a spawn over and over and over.
I remember my brother playing is Ogre shaman, sitting at a guard spawn killing the same guy over and over and over again, he must have spent 40+ hours just killing this guy. He used to log out by the spawn and log back in just to start killing him again.
That might have been slow, but doesn't mean it was more fun. But he wanted to be the best...
Yes but everquest was not built around that mindset, new mmorpg are. You get achievements for fastest time to do this and that and therefore people rush to have a world or server first. So modern mmo games are design around rushing
Thats kinda strange because Vangaurd was the last mmorpg that I played that had FIRST discoveries and leveling was fairly slow..
I'm pretty sure wow and everquest 2 had them before vanguard. People who played vanguard generally didn't have a rushing mindset the game was designed for the old school.
Ok so you are saying WoW and EQ2 started the rush to cap mindset but then it ended shortly after?
What do you mean it ended? vanguard failed and the rush to cap games are still the number one sellers on the market.
I think this whole topic bleeds heavily into sandbox vs theme park, as do many of the topics I've seen posted lately (though I've only just recently stopped lurking to start replying). The fact is that there are many different types of players, and MMORPG's want to try their best to cater to each of those types.
Linear quests provide newbies the guidance that they need to progress. Those same players are the rushers - they don't really want or care if they quests mean anything, as said, they just want to get to the top to be competitive right away. I say then, what is the point of levels? Do we even need them?
I have high hopes and am trying to keep a positive outlook for the future of MMORPG's. But its tough when they cater increasingly to the casual market - rather than trying to satisfy both sides of the spectrum, over time they forget about those who just wanted a big virtual playground, without the guide rails forcing us into a playstyle not of our choosing.
There's so much in this thread that I'd agree with, I'd double the thread length if I quoted it all.
Originally posted by Creslin321
...
I had to comment on this snippet. WoW might have introduced / popularized the "quest node", I don't know that players feeling lost or confused was the actual reason for this. In the early EQ days, there was a lot of hue and cry about how little experience that quests gave in EQ1. The Sony boards were flooded almost every week with multiple 'Its Ever QUEST, so let the quests be worth more XP' threads. The players wanted more experience from the various quests and tasks they ran. In the early days, the quests in EQ were abysmal -- the XP reward was far less than killing 1 of the 10 rats the quest asked you to kill.
I've always seen the quest node as an overreaction to the paltry quest rewards of other games. Starting with the second wave of MMOs (DAoC and others), the quest rewards were about equal to the XP from the 10 rats. WoW came along and upped the quest XP again, rewarding from 1.5x to 2.0x the XP than the 10 rats gave. Almost every game since has followed WoW's lead -- conquering 10 rats is worth more than the cumulative XP of the rats alone.
Part of this trend. I think, was an effort to reduce the 'grind'. If a level in EQ required you do kill 1000 rats, WoW would require only 250 rats to die at your hands, as long as you did the quest. The pure, original 'grind' of killing umpty-zillion rats transformed itself into the 'quest grind'. This mode of play suppliments the XP by requiring a player to speak to the correct NPC before starting the rat exterminations.
So while I agree that the 'quest node' model may help clueless players find their way around the game world, I'm not entirely certain that helping players was the primary motivation for this model.
I agree, I was oversimplifying it. I think you are right that questing was done with the motivation of reducing the grind as well. In fact, I remember loving questing when it first game out, I thought it was amazing.
It wasn't until a while after that I realized what it had done to the game.
I think quests also add a sense of purpose to the grind. I mean, didn't anyone else ever wonder why our characters on EQ would just sit there and kill some people over and over?
Now at least we get some back story, some reason for it.
"Ok, i gotta kill ten of the bandits who raided the camp last night to send a message, got it!"
I think quests also add a sense of purpose to the grind. I mean, didn't anyone else ever wonder why our characters on EQ would just sit there and kill some people over and over?
Now at least we get some back story, some reason for it.
"Ok, i gotta kill ten of the bandits who raided the camp last night to send a message, got it!"
Yes it's I gotta kill 10 bandits and not WE anymore.
There's so much in this thread that I'd agree with, I'd double the thread length if I quoted it all.
Originally posted by Creslin321
...
I had to comment on this snippet. WoW might have introduced / popularized the "quest node", I don't know that players feeling lost or confused was the actual reason for this. In the early EQ days, there was a lot of hue and cry about how little experience that quests gave in EQ1. The Sony boards were flooded almost every week with multiple 'Its Ever QUEST, so let the quests be worth more XP' threads. The players wanted more experience from the various quests and tasks they ran. In the early days, the quests in EQ were abysmal -- the XP reward was far less than killing 1 of the 10 rats the quest asked you to kill.
I've always seen the quest node as an overreaction to the paltry quest rewards of other games. Starting with the second wave of MMOs (DAoC and others), the quest rewards were about equal to the XP from the 10 rats. WoW came along and upped the quest XP again, rewarding from 1.5x to 2.0x the XP than the 10 rats gave. Almost every game since has followed WoW's lead -- conquering 10 rats is worth more than the cumulative XP of the rats alone.
Part of this trend. I think, was an effort to reduce the 'grind'. If a level in EQ required you do kill 1000 rats, WoW would require only 250 rats to die at your hands, as long as you did the quest. The pure, original 'grind' of killing umpty-zillion rats transformed itself into the 'quest grind'. This mode of play suppliments the XP by requiring a player to speak to the correct NPC before starting the rat exterminations.
So while I agree that the 'quest node' model may help clueless players find their way around the game world, I'm not entirely certain that helping players was the primary motivation for this model.
I agree, I was oversimplifying it. I think you are right that questing was done with the motivation of reducing the grind as well. In fact, I remember loving questing when it first game out, I thought it was amazing.
It wasn't until a while after that I realized what it had done to the game.
At first there was a lot more group questing too though. EQ2 in particular was largely group questing. But eventually the players(majority) asked for less group requirements.
I like questing, but I think its becoming a little too simplified. The quests should be longer, the new 1-60 quests on WoW are actually done nicely with phasing, they have a large story arc and usually end with some kind of boss fight. Its not perfect, but its better.
MMORPG'S are not virtual worlds anyore they are games filled with anti-social features such as leaderboards, achievements and solo quests which all focus on individual success, other players just get in your way while you quest so screw them right????. These games are designed from the start to be anti-social.
As I said in my post above yours....console game generation invaded the MMO genre...now they are the majority and turning MMO's into console games with super multi-player they don't even utilize.
But even when I play FPS games, or strategy games...if they are multi-player...everyone is always in a big damn rush.
I don't really buy that the "players" are the reason for the rush mentality in MMORPGs. Simply because I usually rush through modern MMORPGs but I don't rush through other games. There just isn't any reason to "smell the flowers" in MMORPGs...there's not much there to smell. After you do the quests in an area, the area is just full of motionless NPCs that don't do anything...there's nothing left to do but move on. There's no player towns or other dynamic things to discover, and anything worth finding usually has a quest to point you at it.
SPRPGs just provide a much richer world to explore. I can walk around for hours in the Elder Scrolls games just doing crap and enjoy myself. But WoW or Rift? No way. If you aren't questing, PvPing, or doing dungeons then you really aren't playing. And that's the problem.
Ok so you are saying WoW and EQ2 started the rush to cap mindset but then it ended shortly after?
What do you mean it ended? vanguard failed and the rush to cap games are still the number one sellers on the market.
I ment the features that create this "rushed mindset" as you put it using discoveries aren't being used. My point was, server first discoveries aresn't the real reason if players are still rushing without it.
I think quests also add a sense of purpose to the grind. I mean, didn't anyone else ever wonder why our characters on EQ would just sit there and kill some people over and over?
Now at least we get some back story, some reason for it.
"Ok, i gotta kill ten of the bandits who raided the camp last night to send a message, got it!"
Yes it's I gotta kill 10 bandits and not WE anymore.
Ya, its I have to kill 10 bandits as opposed to WE have to find more people so WE can sit here and kill 600 bandits hoping that WE get a level sometime in the next 12 hours.
How did that encourage exploration? Remind me? I explore more playing WoW than I did EQ to be honest. EQ had that danger about it, but at least in wow you have a reason to explore an entire zone.
Some people over romanticize the EQ experience. Most people found the best spawns for the best time to EXP ratio and sat there grinding. It was slow but it wasn't as romantic as you make it out to be.
There's so much in this thread that I'd agree with, I'd double the thread length if I quoted it all.
Originally posted by Creslin321
...
...
I agree, I was oversimplifying it. I think you are right that questing was done with the motivation of reducing the grind as well. In fact, I remember loving questing when it first game out, I thought it was amazing.
It wasn't until a while after that I realized what it had done to the game.
At first there was a lot more group questing too though. EQ2 in particular was largely group questing. But eventually the players(majority) asked for less group requirements.
I like questing, but I think its becoming a little too simplified. The quests should be longer, the new 1-60 quests on WoW are actually done nicely with phasing, they have a large story arc and usually end with some kind of boss fight. Its not perfect, but its better.
Group questing has its own problems though. Namely it's very difficult to find a group of people that happen to be similar to your level, happen to be at the same point in a quest chain, and just happen to be online and in the same area at the same time.
As for phasing...if you're going to do this, then why not just make it an SPRPG or CORPG? That's essentially what phasing is moving towards. You only share the world with people that you happen to be at the same point in the quest line with.
IMO, quests should not be tied to the PLAYER. They should all be tied to the WORLD. When a quest is complete, it's complete for the whole world. Sure, it can repeat later, but you won't have any of this nonsense where 10 players are waiting in a line to wipe out the same gnoll camp.
There's so much in this thread that I'd agree with, I'd double the thread length if I quoted it all.
Originally posted by Creslin321
...
...
I agree, I was oversimplifying it. I think you are right that questing was done with the motivation of reducing the grind as well. In fact, I remember loving questing when it first game out, I thought it was amazing.
It wasn't until a while after that I realized what it had done to the game.
At first there was a lot more group questing too though. EQ2 in particular was largely group questing. But eventually the players(majority) asked for less group requirements.
I like questing, but I think its becoming a little too simplified. The quests should be longer, the new 1-60 quests on WoW are actually done nicely with phasing, they have a large story arc and usually end with some kind of boss fight. Its not perfect, but its better.
Group questing has its own problems though. Namely it's very difficult to find a group of people that happen to be similar to your level, happen to be at the same point in a quest chain, and just happen to be online and in the same area at the same time.
As for phasing...if you're going to do this, then why not just make it an SPRPG or CORPG? That's essentially what phasing is moving towards. You only share the world with people that you happen to be at the same point in the quest line with.
IMO, quests should not be tied to the PLAYER. They should all be tied to the WORLD. When a quest is complete, it's complete for the whole world. Sure, it can repeat later, but you won't have any of this nonsense where 10 players are waiting in a line to wipe out the same gnoll camp.
DCUO solved this problem nicely, if you and another player are on the same quest you can both get credit for killing a mob/completing an objective even if you arent grouped.
Definitly helps get rid of some of that SPRPG feel when a bunch of players will be helping each other out randomly.
Comments
Honestly though, people rushed in EQ as well. There have always been rushers, my brother is one of them. The big difference is, instead of doing dungeons and quests, they were just sitting there camping a spawn over and over and over.
I remember my brother playing is Ogre shaman, sitting at a guard spawn killing the same guy over and over and over again, he must have spent 40+ hours just killing this guy. He used to log out by the spawn and log back in just to start killing him again.
That might have been slow, but doesn't mean it was more fun. But he wanted to be the best...
I played EQ everyday for 4+ hours a day afetr work. Did that for a bit over a year before it tappered off a bit. But even then it STILL took me a year to reach lvl 65.
In today's MMO's I can reach lvl 65 in as little as 2 weeks...without even playing but a few days a week for a couple of hours a day. I did Rift beta and even though I mainly spent the time actualyl testing...unlike so many others...I still got to lvl 38 in a couple of weeks and saw all but 4 zones. Why I am not playing it now. Besides seeing so much bfore release, the Rift invasions were all the same and not very exciting after the first few. They needed more variety and soem rare spawns coming from them or something.
Yes but everquest was not built around that mindset, new mmorpg are. You get achievements for fastest time to do this and that and therefore people rush to have a world or server first. So modern mmo games are designed around rushing
Exactly.
Also, EQ and UO were made for exploration and adventure and COMMUNITY. And dev's used innovation and creativity and made profit on the side (Meaning made profit as intended but enjoyed creating as well). Now it is the opposite. The dev's lazily cram lifeless content in to keep the masses that don't know any better occupied to maximize profit with little effort and actual creativity put forth.
That's kinda strange because Vanguard was the last mmorpg that I played that had FIRST discoveries and leveling was fairly slow.
I'm pretty sure wow and everquest 2 had them before vanguard. People who played vanguard generally didn't have a rushing mindset the game was designed for the old school.
Maby beacuse VG was designed oldschool from the start in a sea of clones.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
I agree. I would also add that "levels" themselves are part of the problem. A level based advancement system caters to the "rush" mentality as it creates an easy comparison system which a player can say they are "better" than another player. A skill based system (like EvE), while not completely immune to the comparison problem, mitigates the desire for everyone to rush to the level cap and be the best.
Just my incoherent 2 cents...
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true...
ADHD friendly for the loose.
Problem is class based games (ie. EQ) do not offer enough mini milestones to keep you feel like you are progressing consistantly. Grinding for days just to game a single level with no change sucks.
Ok so you are saying WoW and EQ2 started the rush to cap mindset but then it ended shortly after?
At the same time, i feel like modern MMOs are built around more fun too. Think about it, was camping the same mob over and over to get through a hell level really that fun? My brother stayed online for an entire 24 hours once camping one mob so he could get a robe to drop, was it fun? It didn't look like it.
But that "Gotta have it" achievement mindset was the driving force behind EQ. EQ may not have been built around rushing but it was built around grinding, which is the same thing but slower.
Was waiting for 20 minutes starring into your spell book while your mana refilled a fun experience? Did that improve the gameplay? Are we rushing through that now by having faster regeneration on mana?
I miss the exploration of EQ a lot, original EQ, modern EQ is worse than WoW with their stupid Planes of Portals or whatever. EQ had a great world, that felt big and dangerous, it has a lot to miss. But the grind was not one of them. Trying to get a group for an hour, was not one of them.
It may have been slower, but the grind wasnt better.
I had to comment on this snippet. WoW might have introduced / popularized the "quest node", I don't know that players feeling lost or confused was the actual reason for this. In the early EQ days, there was a lot of hue and cry about how little experience that quests gave in EQ1. The Sony boards were flooded almost every week with multiple 'Its Ever QUEST, so let the quests be worth more XP' threads. The players wanted more experience from the various quests and tasks they ran. In the early days, the quests in EQ were abysmal -- the XP reward was far less than killing 1 of the 10 rats the quest asked you to kill.
I've always seen the quest node as an overreaction to the paltry quest rewards of other games. Starting with the second wave of MMOs (DAoC and others), the quest rewards were about equal to the XP from the 10 rats. WoW came along and upped the quest XP again, rewarding from 1.5x to 2.0x the XP than the 10 rats gave. Almost every game since has followed WoW's lead -- conquering 10 rats is worth more than the cumulative XP of the rats alone.
Part of this trend. I think, was an effort to reduce the 'grind'. If a level in EQ required you do kill 1000 rats, WoW would require only 250 rats to die at your hands, as long as you did the quest. The pure, original 'grind' of killing umpty-zillion rats transformed itself into the 'quest grind'. This mode of play suppliments the XP by requiring a player to speak to the correct NPC before starting the rat exterminations.
So while I agree that the 'quest node' model may help clueless players find their way around the game world, I'm not entirely certain that helping players was the primary motivation for this model.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Hence why I still play it even with its small active player base...
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true...
Actually EQ2 when it first launched, was a lot harder and slower. It was largely group based content, they redesigned it based on feedback.
What do you mean it ended? vanguard failed and the rush to cap games are still the number one sellers on the market.
I think this whole topic bleeds heavily into sandbox vs theme park, as do many of the topics I've seen posted lately (though I've only just recently stopped lurking to start replying). The fact is that there are many different types of players, and MMORPG's want to try their best to cater to each of those types.
Linear quests provide newbies the guidance that they need to progress. Those same players are the rushers - they don't really want or care if they quests mean anything, as said, they just want to get to the top to be competitive right away. I say then, what is the point of levels? Do we even need them?
I have high hopes and am trying to keep a positive outlook for the future of MMORPG's. But its tough when they cater increasingly to the casual market - rather than trying to satisfy both sides of the spectrum, over time they forget about those who just wanted a big virtual playground, without the guide rails forcing us into a playstyle not of our choosing.
what would the perfect MMORPG be like?
I agree, I was oversimplifying it. I think you are right that questing was done with the motivation of reducing the grind as well. In fact, I remember loving questing when it first game out, I thought it was amazing.
It wasn't until a while after that I realized what it had done to the game.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
I think quests also add a sense of purpose to the grind. I mean, didn't anyone else ever wonder why our characters on EQ would just sit there and kill some people over and over?
Now at least we get some back story, some reason for it.
"Ok, i gotta kill ten of the bandits who raided the camp last night to send a message, got it!"
Yes it's I gotta kill 10 bandits and not WE anymore.
At first there was a lot more group questing too though. EQ2 in particular was largely group questing. But eventually the players(majority) asked for less group requirements.
I like questing, but I think its becoming a little too simplified. The quests should be longer, the new 1-60 quests on WoW are actually done nicely with phasing, they have a large story arc and usually end with some kind of boss fight. Its not perfect, but its better.
I don't really buy that the "players" are the reason for the rush mentality in MMORPGs. Simply because I usually rush through modern MMORPGs but I don't rush through other games. There just isn't any reason to "smell the flowers" in MMORPGs...there's not much there to smell. After you do the quests in an area, the area is just full of motionless NPCs that don't do anything...there's nothing left to do but move on. There's no player towns or other dynamic things to discover, and anything worth finding usually has a quest to point you at it.
SPRPGs just provide a much richer world to explore. I can walk around for hours in the Elder Scrolls games just doing crap and enjoy myself. But WoW or Rift? No way. If you aren't questing, PvPing, or doing dungeons then you really aren't playing. And that's the problem.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
I ment the features that create this "rushed mindset" as you put it using discoveries aren't being used. My point was, server first discoveries aresn't the real reason if players are still rushing without it.
Ya, its I have to kill 10 bandits as opposed to WE have to find more people so WE can sit here and kill 600 bandits hoping that WE get a level sometime in the next 12 hours.
How did that encourage exploration? Remind me? I explore more playing WoW than I did EQ to be honest. EQ had that danger about it, but at least in wow you have a reason to explore an entire zone.
Some people over romanticize the EQ experience. Most people found the best spawns for the best time to EXP ratio and sat there grinding. It was slow but it wasn't as romantic as you make it out to be.
Group questing has its own problems though. Namely it's very difficult to find a group of people that happen to be similar to your level, happen to be at the same point in a quest chain, and just happen to be online and in the same area at the same time.
As for phasing...if you're going to do this, then why not just make it an SPRPG or CORPG? That's essentially what phasing is moving towards. You only share the world with people that you happen to be at the same point in the quest line with.
IMO, quests should not be tied to the PLAYER. They should all be tied to the WORLD. When a quest is complete, it's complete for the whole world. Sure, it can repeat later, but you won't have any of this nonsense where 10 players are waiting in a line to wipe out the same gnoll camp.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
DCUO solved this problem nicely, if you and another player are on the same quest you can both get credit for killing a mob/completing an objective even if you arent grouped.
Definitly helps get rid of some of that SPRPG feel when a bunch of players will be helping each other out randomly.