Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
asian mmos changing?
Jd1680a
Member Posts: 398
im wondering if future asian mmos are going to be changing? like less grind and more user friendly environment. not something like lineage 2, but something like eq2 or WoW user friendly environment and less grind.
Have played: CoH, DDO EQ2, FFXI, L2, HZ, SoR, and WW2 online
Comments
Yes they are changing. Why do I keep having to repeat this fact? Just look at the current line-up of asian mmo's and rescent releases.
Guild Wars- Very popular in Korea. No level grinding; high emersion quests; good PVP; descent graphics
Ragnarok Online 2- Main Goal is to reduce the amount of down time and starting over you have to do. No hunting for uber gear; no remaking to be a different job class; they created a unique system to handle this. Since people aren't wasting time in time sinks like level grinding, restarting, and hunting weapons; they can concentrate more on the real aspect of the game, community interaction with more realistic expressable emotions then any game ever made including Wiki.
Huxley- I think it should be obvious its gonna be a skill based game.
I can't speak for other games coming out of Asia since I haven't read thier features list and have found anything that would suggest they are trying to eliminate level grinding. SUN possibly will have less grind since its suppose to be a Guild Wars Clone. Also Granado Espada might since its suppose to focus more on Strategy.
Also alot of the upcoming Asian games are steering away from the killing of hundreds of the same monster. So they are making the monster challenging to fight. So you end up being rewarded for being with parties and killing monsters beyond your level range.
/* Edit
Here is how most mmo's used to handle exp for monsters based on level. The amount of exp you need to level would go up exponentially. The amount of exp you gain from monsters goes up linerally. So as a result, it would be more effecient and less costly and time consuming to kill 1000 of monster X 10 levels lower then you than to challenge monster Y 5 levels above you since you would only net the exp of 2 monster X's.
With the new System the monster exp also goes up exponentially, so if you team up and kill monster Y. You spent 3 minutes getting the same exp killing monster X for 2 hours.
Edit*/
Here are some useful facts. Korean game developers think American's like to level grind based on popular games as examples. Like epic grinding equipment in EQ and WOW. Many more Korean games are steering away from level grinding since they figured out it isn't the actual aspect Korean's like with the games. It was purely a coincedence that the popular games had a level grind. The real drawing power was PVP, and Strategy Elements.
You have to remember MMO's are more social in Korea and Asia due to Internet Cafe's and the large majority of people who play mmo's. You wanna make name for yourself in PVP, and show off your build and different strategies in PVP. Im sure alot of people know about Game tournaments in the US. They are kinda geeky. In Korea at a large game tournament; you will see the top players with super model girlfriends attached to them.
I really don't know why people are thinking asians like to level grind. If you look at all the upcoming mmo's its really the Asian ones that are being diversified; most American mmo's are using the tried and true methods already developed; including time sinks.
The problem is that the most popular Korean games are lvl grinders. I used to play Legend of Mir which is probably the most popular game in Korea. When you get to a certain lvl it takes months of grinding for one lvl but it is still more popular now than ever.
I do expect things to change but I suspect it will take a while.
True of all MMORPG's. There are very few MMORPG's in the entire WORLD that aren't level grinders. I can think of 3 or 4 but the vast majority, regardless of which nationality is making them, are level grinders. This is because of the EQ phenomena. People took EQ's original success and went "wow... the level grind must be what made it so successful".
It wasn't... what made EQ successful was an excellent blend of questing, adventuraing, exploring and crafting. UO was "better" but had worse graphics. Which is why, while it didn't die during the EQ Era, it never surpassed EQ once EQ got it's steam going.
But all that companies saw was the numbers. "500k players" was stunning back then. UO had "only" 300k at it's peak. EQ also grew more rapidly (because it released later, had more 'popular' graphics and had a bigger company driving it) so that factored in as well.
So everyone made EQ clones and, to this day, the industry is still making mostly level grinders. Another problem is that those few games that have tried to go with skill systems have done so *badly* and implemented very boring gameplay as a result.
UO is in a class by itself really.
Even many games that claim to be skill based: Ryzom, AO, Shadowbane, etc are really *level* based with a skill system tacked inside the levels, much like DAOC and even, if you think about it, EQ. EQ had "skills" too, that you had to spend skill points to use, or just train them by using them. That doesn't mean it's a skill based game. Very few games have followed the UO model.
SWG did originally (no surprise since most of the coders were hired from the UO dev team).
EVE did
That pretty much covers it for any 'well known' MMORPG's. Irth claims to but I haven't tried it since it's bug ridden release. D&L claims to but that fiasco is just a disaster waiting to happen. Hopefully the devs over there will pull it together and release a solid game... but I doubt it.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas