Killing 1000 mobs for my next level, gear, or whatever simply isn't fun, especially as it's a test of endurance, not actual skill or anything else.
Then PvE isnt for you, PVP is.
Having to kill 1000 mobs for the next level, gear, or whatever a bunch of times still isn't fun if it's gearing up for PvP rather than for more PvE.
Well killing 1000 mobs is better then doing 1000 pointless quests for the next level, gear or whatever a bunch of times.
I rather get a group and go find a good place to hunt and explorer then to run pointless quests over and over because they give stupid amount of exp.
The problem is that the current MMO give you a billion quests that all give you far to much exp which stops players from grouping to gain exp because group exp is far less then quest exp.
Yep, I agree with you. Quest for exp is BORING as hell! I rather do quest to get unique items with no exp reward along with days timer to do the quest again.
Games are for entertainment, not job replacement. Games have not made anyone lazy (other than, its what you do when you are felling lazy), developers are just giving people what they want. Pure and simple.
Its not pure and simple because I know plenty of people that are sick of the easy mode MMOs that are flooding the market.
Gamers are lazy now, they want everything without any effort. They do not want any risk involved in getting the best gear and reaching max level becuase heaven for bid they have to work for it.
Its the same in RL, most people want everything handed to them with no work involved.
Its sad really that people have gotten to the point that they feel they are entitled to anything they want without putting in the effort for it. Look at youth sports, everyone gets a trophy now just for playing, that is sad and it does not teach people how to lose gracefully.
I play games because I love problem solving and todays MMOs require no problem solving, you are lead by the hand to max level with out any effort.
I don't want a second job either but I want to have to think and figure shit out while playing a game. I do not want everything handed to me, I want EARN my rewards and level.
EQ made you EARN your gear and levels. EQ was not a second job to me and I was in a hardcore raiding guild that raided everynight. I want a game to force me to think and to figure stuff out.
How hard is it to think while playing a game? Playing WoW or WAR or any other new MMO takes the thinking part out of the game.
Killing 1000 mobs for my next level, gear, or whatever simply isn't fun, especially as it's a test of endurance, not actual skill or anything else.
Then PvE isnt for you, PVP is.
Having to kill 1000 mobs for the next level, gear, or whatever a bunch of times still isn't fun if it's gearing up for PvP rather than for more PvE.
Then dont play MMORPG LOL, simple enough. Go play Call of duty or those shooting game if u dont want to gear up, just wanted to PVP. Or rather you can go play Diablo 2 LOD or Darkfall to pvp.
Originally posted by TdogSkal Well killing 1000 mobs is better then doing 1000 pointless quests for the next level, gear or whatever a bunch of times. I rather get a group and go find a good place to hunt and explorer then to run pointless quests over and over because they give stupid amount of exp. The problem is that the current MMO give you a billion quests that all give you far to much exp which stops players from grouping to gain exp because group exp is far less then quest exp.
Without quests, killing some mobs will level you faster than others. Thus, you kill obscene numbers of the ones that level you faster, and none of the rest. Instead of dabbling a bit in all of the content, you skip 95% of the content to heavily grind the other 5%. That's not fun.
Originally posted by TdogSkal Well killing 1000 mobs is better then doing 1000 pointless quests for the next level, gear or whatever a bunch of times. I rather get a group and go find a good place to hunt and explorer then to run pointless quests over and over because they give stupid amount of exp. The problem is that the current MMO give you a billion quests that all give you far to much exp which stops players from grouping to gain exp because group exp is far less then quest exp.
Without quests, killing some mobs will level you faster than others. Thus, you kill obscene numbers of the ones that level you faster, and none of the rest. Instead of dabbling a bit in all of the content, you skip 95% of the content to heavily grind the other 5%. That's not fun.
I rather in 5% than doing quest with exp reward. It makes me feel like the game is controlling my way to play. If i want to level, I fight mobs, rather than doing quest to get easy exp which is plain stupid and boring. Like You said dabbling a bit content, which is not true. You could always do quest to obtain unique items which requires you to run middle of no where to enter the portal, if you can make it through. Ain't that fun and plenty content to explore? It makes you feel u earn the reward to obtain the item, not lousy exp.
Originally posted by Kain_Dale Then dont play MMORPG LOL, simple enough. Go play Call of duty or those shooting game if u dont want to gear up, just wanted to PVP. Or rather you can go play Diablo 2 LOD or Darkfall to pvp.
The problem isn't gearing up, per se. The problem is having to kill a thousand of a mob, rather than ten of this and ten of that, and then you move on. Once you've killed something several times, you've proven that, in principle, you could kill thousands of it. For interesting gameplay, the thing to do at that point is for the game to say, there's no challenge left for you here, so go ahead and move on to something else. Make players do each set of content once. Don't make players do something a zillion times a in a row.
Originally posted by TdogSkal Well killing 1000 mobs is better then doing 1000 pointless quests for the next level, gear or whatever a bunch of times. I rather get a group and go find a good place to hunt and explorer then to run pointless quests over and over because they give stupid amount of exp. The problem is that the current MMO give you a billion quests that all give you far to much exp which stops players from grouping to gain exp because group exp is far less then quest exp.
Without quests, killing some mobs will level you faster than others. Thus, you kill obscene numbers of the ones that level you faster, and none of the rest. Instead of dabbling a bit in all of the content, you skip 95% of the content to heavily grind the other 5%. That's not fun.
I don't know what game your talking about but in EQ that was not true at all. It had several zones at every level you could go to and grind mobs. It was up to you to pick which zone you felt like going to. Shit even at max level, I had 5+ zones I could go to and grind AA points, it all depended on what I wanted to kill that day.
I know what your saying but its simply not true because at least you can go to different spots and hunt different mobs but with a quest system, everyone does the exact same path to max level. In a grinding game, everyone picks there own path to max level and decided what mobs they want to kill.
An Example. In EQ1 at lvl 75 (max when I left). I could solo at the planes of fire tables or I could group in RS, or any other elemental planes zones. Each had different exp rates but depending on what I felt like doing, I could pick any of those zones and get a good exp rate. It was all up to me and what I wanted to do. In WAR for example (last MMO i played) I could not pick what zone I wanted to hunt in, I had to follow the quest hubs because I was stupid if I did not do the quests.
Originally posted by Kain_Dale Then dont play MMORPG LOL, simple enough. Go play Call of duty or those shooting game if u dont want to gear up, just wanted to PVP. Or rather you can go play Diablo 2 LOD or Darkfall to pvp.
The problem isn't gearing up, per se. The problem is having to kill a thousand of a mob, rather than ten of this and ten of that, and then you move on. Once you've killed something several times, you've proven that, in principle, you could kill thousands of it. For interesting gameplay, the thing to do at that point is for the game to say, there's no challenge left for you here, so go ahead and move on to something else. Make players do each set of content once. Don't make players do something a zillion times a in a row.
Go play Atlantica Online then. It fits your description.
Originally posted by Kain_Dale I rather in 5% than doing quest with exp reward. It makes me feel like the game is controlling my way to play. If i want to level, I fight mobs, rather than doing quest to get easy exp which is plain stupid and boring. Like You said dabbling a bit content, which is not true. You could always do quest to obtain unique items which requires you to run middle of no where to enter the portal, if you can make it through. Ain't that fun and plenty content to explore? It makes you feel u earn the reward to obtain the item, not lousy exp.
A game that says you have to level up or gear up or whatever discourages you from doing things that don't level you. That is, it discourages you from trying something challenging for the sake fo getting a good challenge. If a game is supposed to be challenging, then it needs to reward players for trying things that are challenging at least as much as for things that are easy. What you are proposing is implicitly giving players greater rewards for trying easy things.
Originally posted by Kain_Dale Then dont play MMORPG LOL, simple enough. Go play Call of duty or those shooting game if u dont want to gear up, just wanted to PVP. Or rather you can go play Diablo 2 LOD or Darkfall to pvp.
The problem isn't gearing up, per se. The problem is having to kill a thousand of a mob, rather than ten of this and ten of that, and then you move on. Once you've killed something several times, you've proven that, in principle, you could kill thousands of it. For interesting gameplay, the thing to do at that point is for the game to say, there's no challenge left for you here, so go ahead and move on to something else. Make players do each set of content once. Don't make players do something a zillion times a in a row.
How can you say that quests don't make you do the same thing over and over again. Quest hub to Quest hub offers you nothing different expect the level of the mobs.
With group grinding you can pick any number of zones to level in at any given level which is nice because it makes you explore the world around you instead of following the same path as every other player before you.
Originally posted by Kain_Dale Go play Atlantica Online then. It fits your description.
There's an enormous difference between ten of these and twenty of those as opposed to a hundred of these and two hundred of those. In the case of Atlantica, it also entails way too much running back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. Making it free to lose but have to buy a ton of stuff from the item mall to win is also a problem.
Guild Wars fits my description much, much better. Do content for the sake of doing content, not for the sake of grinding.
Originally posted by Kain_Dale I rather in 5% than doing quest with exp reward. It makes me feel like the game is controlling my way to play. If i want to level, I fight mobs, rather than doing quest to get easy exp which is plain stupid and boring. Like You said dabbling a bit content, which is not true. You could always do quest to obtain unique items which requires you to run middle of no where to enter the portal, if you can make it through. Ain't that fun and plenty content to explore? It makes you feel u earn the reward to obtain the item, not lousy exp.
A game that says you have to level up or gear up or whatever discourages you from doing things that don't level you. That is, it discourages you from trying something challenging for the sake fo getting a good challenge. If a game is supposed to be challenging, then it needs to reward players for trying things that are challenging at least as much as for things that are easy. What you are proposing is implicitly giving players greater rewards for trying easy things.
I can tell by your comments that you never played EQ1 because doing something challenging of the sake of a challenge was a daily thing for me. Why becuase it was fun to see if I could pull that off and when I did it was very rewarding because I knew if I failed I would lose something.
What Kain is propsing is making quest only for rare and cool items and group grinding for exp. Which gives you the best of both worlds in my mind. Quest are far and few between but they are worth it.
Well if your talking about vital spell components DDO is were alot of preperation needs to take place befor a run or it used. I used to play a ranger and a cleric. Ranger, need to bring enought sand and arrows. Sand was for a a bunch of his spells and arrows for his bow of course. and cleric forget about, you forget the candles, silver powders or w/e you cant buff and he party screams at you. Same with any class really. and for endless and pointless quests. ya i agree i think they should focus alot more on exploreing and grouping then thousands of quests. Nothing worse then doing a diffent quest with the same basic objective, (kill X amount, Collect X amount, or Kill X target) sems to sum up about 95% of all quests. not complaining just makeing a observation.
I am a huge DnD fan and the way you lvl up on the PnP one seems to be much more rewarding, and it takes time and patience. An the objectives are never the same really or at least i make sure they are not. Mabey instead of just grinding off the mobs and mindless PvP , mabey MMO's should take a diffrent look at lvling and MMO system its self. lots of dungons yes, every one who enjoys both pvp and pve dos enjoy dungons. But instead of like 4 thousand quests we have a dozen or so quests that are very long and very group orinted. This would make players be social and even friendly. You get exp for monsters them selfs yet every time you complete 1 step of your journey of the quest you would get a modest sum of exp. then after a week of doing group quests and following the story line you would get a larg sum of exp that would bring you up a lvl or at least close. This would make lvling alot slower and more statisfying at least to me and the players i know. Iam sure alot of MMO players love to speed run things to become "uber" or w/e they prefur to call them selfs but that seems very boreing to me. Combat should be more detalied then button smashing, and honestly even the best MMO's i player have a large amount of buttoning smashing. An that made alot of us lazy. IMO
Well if your talking about vital spell components DDO is were alot of preperation needs to take place befor a run or it used. I used to play a ranger and a cleric. Ranger, need to bring enought sand and arrows. Sand was for a a bunch of his spells and arrows for his bow of course. and cleric forget about, you forget the candles, silver powders or w/e you cant buff and he party screams at you. Same with any class really. and for endless and pointless quests. ya i agree i think they should focus alot more on exploreing and grouping then thousands of quests. Nothing worse then doing a diffent quest with the same basic objective, (kill X amount, Collect X amount, or Kill X target) sems to sum up about 95% of all quests. not complaining just makeing a observation. I am a huge DnD fan and the way you lvl up on the PnP one seems to be much more rewarding, and it takes time and patience. An the objectives are never the same really or at least i make sure they are not. Mabey instead of just grinding off the mobs and mindless PvP , mabey MMO's should take a diffrent look at lvling and MMO system its self. lots of dungons yes, every one who enjoys both pvp and pve dos enjoy dungons. But instead of like 4 thousand quests we have a dozen or so quests that are very long and very group orinted. This would make players be social and even friendly. You get exp for monsters them selfs yet every time you complete 1 step of your journey of the quest you would get a modest sum of exp. then after a week of doing group quests and following the story line you would get a larg sum of exp that would bring you up a lvl or at least close. This would make lvling alot slower and more statisfying at least to me and the players i know. Iam sure alot of MMO players love to speed run things to become "uber" or w/e they prefur to call them selfs but that seems very boreing to me. Combat should be more detalied then button smashing, and honestly even the best MMO's i player have a large amount of buttoning smashing. An that made alot of us lazy. IMO Sorry just had to get that out there.
That is why I am waiting on Citadel of Sorcery - Check out this game, it is a way off from release but at least a developer is trying something new and different. It will have a quest system but not like we are used to.
Surely the future (whcih is already happening) will lead to a wide variety of MMOs. Some will be aimed at a small number of hardcore people and others mgiht be aimed at the casual mass market. The problem is that a lot of the hardcore want to play the games aimed at casual players because that's usually where the big numbers are at and they're the ones who find themselves unfulfilled.
Originally posted by Kain_Dale Go play Atlantica Online then. It fits your description.
There's an enormous difference between ten of these and twenty of those as opposed to a hundred of these and two hundred of those. In the case of Atlantica, it also entails way too much running back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. Making it free to lose but have to buy a ton of stuff from the item mall to win is also a problem.
Guild Wars fits my description much, much better. Do content for the sake of doing content, not for the sake of grinding.
Thats is because micro games suck balls. It requires you to pay then it will make it easier for you to play. That's why I don't play or pay on micro game at all. I just wanted to play it and see how its like until i get sick of it.
I rather pay for boxed game and pay monthly subscription than micro game. Good for you, stay at GW then.
i think that the new gen mmos tried to make the grind more fun. but they made a mistak in it. Instead of making the grind more fun and keep the length and amount of grinding content, they just made it easier and shorter. this was a bad idea.
MMos need intricate and in depth content. Thsi is something that has been kinda put to the waste side because:
1. it takes too long for casual gamers to get into games like that do to time constraints
2. MMOs devs have been trying to get WOW numbers so they try to make games as appealing as possible so they feel they need teh casual market.
the bottom line is they need to reinvent the grind. All games will have grind. Its impossible not to. you have to add risk to reward. they need to come up with more intricate ways to do it .
i think that the new gen mmos tried to make the grind more fun. but they made a mistak in it. Instead of making the grind more fun and keep the length and amount of grinding content, they just made it easier and shorter. this was a bad idea. MMos need intricate and in depth content. Thsi is something that has been kinda put to the waste side because: 1. it takes too long for casual gamers to get into games like that do to time constraints 2. MMOs devs have been trying to get WOW numbers so they try to make games as appealing as possible so they feel they need teh casual market.
the bottom line is they need to reinvent the grind. All games will have grind. Its impossible not to. you have to add risk to reward. they need to come up with more intricate ways to do it .
I agree 100%. Every game is going to have a grind and every MMO is a timesink. If MMOs were not timesinks we would not play them for years.
A developer needs to reinvent the MMO wheel. That has not happend in awhile. People need to understand that another game will never have WoW like numbers. (unless its Starcraft or Diablo MMO).
The main reason why WoW has the numbers it has is because of the huge Warcraft follow before there was even an MMO. Blizzard has always been good at making games for its core community.
i think that the new gen mmos tried to make the grind more fun. but they made a mistak in it. Instead of making the grind more fun and keep the length and amount of grinding content, they just made it easier and shorter. this was a bad idea. MMos need intricate and in depth content. Thsi is something that has been kinda put to the waste side because: 1. it takes too long for casual gamers to get into games like that do to time constraints 2. MMOs devs have been trying to get WOW numbers so they try to make games as appealing as possible so they feel they need teh casual market.
the bottom line is they need to reinvent the grind. All games will have grind. Its impossible not to. you have to add risk to reward. they need to come up with more intricate ways to do it .
I couldn't agree more with you. I have noticed allot game are like WoW. Its time for devs to come up with new "grinding system" and lower the quest system big time. Add up more solo content, lengthy grinding, leveling, but somehow it makes you feel rewarding sametime.
That is why I am waiting on Citadel of Sorcery - Check out this game, it is a way off from release but at least a developer is trying something new and different. It will have a quest system but not like we are used to.
Cidatel of Sorcery seems interesting, I think I will free-trial it when its ready.
EDIT: the more i read about it, I dont know about it.. But I'll just wait for free-trial.. if there is none, then forget it.
MMOs devs have been trying to get WOW numbers so they try to make games as appealing as possible so they feel they need teh casual market. Don't underestimate the size of the casual market; any MMOG that ignores it is almost certainly doomed to either fail or become a mediocre niche title. DDO is a testament to that; the game was going down the pan big style before they dragged it back from the brink by adding casual content. Bear in mind that subs = revenue and that in turn leads to more available cash for development. Be kind to the casuals, we're paying for ur future content patches.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
MMOs devs have been trying to get WOW numbers so they try to make games as appealing as possible so they feel they need teh casual market. Don't underestimate the size of the casual market; any MMOG that ignores it is almost certainly doomed to either fail or become a mediocre niche title. DDO is a testament to that; the game was going down the pan big style before they dragged it back from the brink by adding casual content. Bear in mind that subs = revenue and that in turn leads to more available cash for development. Be kind to the casuals, we're paying for ur future content patches.
Yea future content patchs on games that I will not play because they are to dumbed down.
Casual games can enjoy "hardcore" MMOs. The casual gamers need to stop wanting everything for nothing. They need to understand that you will have to put forth some effrot to get a reward.
My Dad played EQ1 less then 5 hours a week and loved every minute he played and still talks about playing EQ1.
Yea future content patchs on games that I will not play because they are to dumbed down. Casual doesn't mean easy, and it doesn't mean dumbed down. It means that you can accomplish something fun and challenging without wasting 60 hours of your life per week to do it. The presumption amongst some of the hardcore community that a game is difficult purely because it contains forced grouping and long grinds is laughably inaccurate. Casual games can enjoy "hardcore" MMOs. The casual gamers need to stop wanting everything for nothing. They need to understand that you will have to put forth some effrot to get a reward. Au contraire; casuals don't want "everything for nothing" .. we want goals to be achievable in a reasonable timescale. The effort required to achieve a goal should be based on challenge, not timescale. My Dad played EQ1 less then 5 hours a week and loved every minute he played and still talks about playing EQ1. And I play EVE a few hours a week and enjoy it a great deal too; EVE is a notoriously hardcore game that is run by people who understand the playerbase; it has more than enough accessible content to satisfy a casual gamer, which was sort of the point of my previous post. CCP doesn't ignore the casual market.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
The basic problem is that dealing with the nuisances you describe isn't fun. It's just an obnoxious hassle. Getting developers to stop putting things into games for the sole purpose of harassing their players and trying to chase them away from the game would be a major improvement. That hasn't happened yet, but the movement in that direction is a good thing.
The REAL problem is that people that are new to games can and could not accept that something OP described as being fun.
Often they see things like that as a hassle, where other enjoyed it, but unfortunaly most don't care if others are enjoying certain aspect of certain games, so in turn the masses turn this genre is a easy to play type of handhold game, where challenge is lost, exploring died with teleports, discovery also died with marker on the map for what ever you might have to look for. Communication also dying, lets creat more public quest type of feature's WOHAAAA.....
Simply put people do not want to accept games for what they are, as seen with excuses like wait till you have kids or family which are such ignorant statements as it shows lack of responsibility and understand what you get yourself into when entering a MMORPG. If you feel playing this genre takes to much of your time, try playing less, if thats not possible just except the game might not be for you. That would make MMORPG evolve again, but aslong we have these unexperianced people trying to play games I fear games will become even more easyer with less and less depth.
First of all, with all do respect, I am not an inexperienced player or in any way new to games. I have been playing games since Atari 2600 was the newest thing. I was playing RPG's on BBS's on my 1200 baud modem. Second of all, I personally (I can't speak for Quizzical) was not saying that games with features the OP mentioned don't have value for some gamers. All I was trying to communicate is that it's not valid to make broad statements like all new MMO's are ruining the genre. If you are going to do that then you might as well whine about how video games have ruined the pen-and-paper rpgs. We have gotten so lazy with our graphics (we used to have to use our imagination to visualize what dungeons and monsters looked like) and the machine doing our dice rolls for us.
What I really need to comment on is the fact that you said when people mention having kids and a life as being an ignorant statement and an excuse. Man, that's what I call an ignorant statement. Having a family and a life do change things. Or it should. If not, then your priorities are seriously out of whack. I still like to game, but gaming has gone down in my priority list. I am not sure of your situation, but by saying that I can guess you don't have kids. Dude, these are just games. They are recreation, a hobby. I shouldn't have to think about what I am "taking on" with an MMORPG. It's not a job. I have no responsibility to these games. I should be able to play casually if I want and I certainly shouldn't be called irresponsible for doing so.
Last but not least. Let's all remember that as much we like games...they are a business. Companies are going to put in features that they feel will attract the most users (noob or hardcore) and thus the most money. This isn't going to change, ever.Those games that don't attract users and revenue are going to go the way of the dinosaur, no matter how valid or pure we think the game is. That's just the way it is. So if enough people think a game is loaded with tedious and painful tasks, even if some like it that way, the game will die. When that happens enough it becomes a trend. So like it or not, games are all about "the masses". And currently the masses are saying "I don't want to have to trudge across the globe in this game for 8 hours to gain 1 spell".
So I think some people preaching and ranting about how MMORPG's aren't hardcore enough anymore need to get down off their high horse.
Just my opinion.
Awesome post
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Comments
Then PvE isnt for you, PVP is.
Having to kill 1000 mobs for the next level, gear, or whatever a bunch of times still isn't fun if it's gearing up for PvP rather than for more PvE.
Well killing 1000 mobs is better then doing 1000 pointless quests for the next level, gear or whatever a bunch of times.
I rather get a group and go find a good place to hunt and explorer then to run pointless quests over and over because they give stupid amount of exp.
The problem is that the current MMO give you a billion quests that all give you far to much exp which stops players from grouping to gain exp because group exp is far less then quest exp.
Yep, I agree with you. Quest for exp is BORING as hell! I rather do quest to get unique items with no exp reward along with days timer to do the quest again.
Kain_Dale
Its not pure and simple because I know plenty of people that are sick of the easy mode MMOs that are flooding the market.
Gamers are lazy now, they want everything without any effort. They do not want any risk involved in getting the best gear and reaching max level becuase heaven for bid they have to work for it.
Its the same in RL, most people want everything handed to them with no work involved.
Its sad really that people have gotten to the point that they feel they are entitled to anything they want without putting in the effort for it. Look at youth sports, everyone gets a trophy now just for playing, that is sad and it does not teach people how to lose gracefully.
I play games because I love problem solving and todays MMOs require no problem solving, you are lead by the hand to max level with out any effort.
I don't want a second job either but I want to have to think and figure shit out while playing a game. I do not want everything handed to me, I want EARN my rewards and level.
EQ made you EARN your gear and levels. EQ was not a second job to me and I was in a hardcore raiding guild that raided everynight. I want a game to force me to think and to figure stuff out.
How hard is it to think while playing a game? Playing WoW or WAR or any other new MMO takes the thinking part out of the game.
Sooner or Later
Then PvE isnt for you, PVP is.
Having to kill 1000 mobs for the next level, gear, or whatever a bunch of times still isn't fun if it's gearing up for PvP rather than for more PvE.
Then dont play MMORPG LOL, simple enough. Go play Call of duty or those shooting game if u dont want to gear up, just wanted to PVP. Or rather you can go play Diablo 2 LOD or Darkfall to pvp.
Kain_Dale
Without quests, killing some mobs will level you faster than others. Thus, you kill obscene numbers of the ones that level you faster, and none of the rest. Instead of dabbling a bit in all of the content, you skip 95% of the content to heavily grind the other 5%. That's not fun.
Without quests, killing some mobs will level you faster than others. Thus, you kill obscene numbers of the ones that level you faster, and none of the rest. Instead of dabbling a bit in all of the content, you skip 95% of the content to heavily grind the other 5%. That's not fun.
I rather in 5% than doing quest with exp reward. It makes me feel like the game is controlling my way to play. If i want to level, I fight mobs, rather than doing quest to get easy exp which is plain stupid and boring. Like You said dabbling a bit content, which is not true. You could always do quest to obtain unique items which requires you to run middle of no where to enter the portal, if you can make it through. Ain't that fun and plenty content to explore? It makes you feel u earn the reward to obtain the item, not lousy exp.
Kain_Dale
The problem isn't gearing up, per se. The problem is having to kill a thousand of a mob, rather than ten of this and ten of that, and then you move on. Once you've killed something several times, you've proven that, in principle, you could kill thousands of it. For interesting gameplay, the thing to do at that point is for the game to say, there's no challenge left for you here, so go ahead and move on to something else. Make players do each set of content once. Don't make players do something a zillion times a in a row.
Without quests, killing some mobs will level you faster than others. Thus, you kill obscene numbers of the ones that level you faster, and none of the rest. Instead of dabbling a bit in all of the content, you skip 95% of the content to heavily grind the other 5%. That's not fun.
I don't know what game your talking about but in EQ that was not true at all. It had several zones at every level you could go to and grind mobs. It was up to you to pick which zone you felt like going to. Shit even at max level, I had 5+ zones I could go to and grind AA points, it all depended on what I wanted to kill that day.
I know what your saying but its simply not true because at least you can go to different spots and hunt different mobs but with a quest system, everyone does the exact same path to max level. In a grinding game, everyone picks there own path to max level and decided what mobs they want to kill.
An Example. In EQ1 at lvl 75 (max when I left). I could solo at the planes of fire tables or I could group in RS, or any other elemental planes zones. Each had different exp rates but depending on what I felt like doing, I could pick any of those zones and get a good exp rate. It was all up to me and what I wanted to do. In WAR for example (last MMO i played) I could not pick what zone I wanted to hunt in, I had to follow the quest hubs because I was stupid if I did not do the quests.
Sooner or Later
The problem isn't gearing up, per se. The problem is having to kill a thousand of a mob, rather than ten of this and ten of that, and then you move on. Once you've killed something several times, you've proven that, in principle, you could kill thousands of it. For interesting gameplay, the thing to do at that point is for the game to say, there's no challenge left for you here, so go ahead and move on to something else. Make players do each set of content once. Don't make players do something a zillion times a in a row.
Go play Atlantica Online then. It fits your description.
Kain_Dale
A game that says you have to level up or gear up or whatever discourages you from doing things that don't level you. That is, it discourages you from trying something challenging for the sake fo getting a good challenge. If a game is supposed to be challenging, then it needs to reward players for trying things that are challenging at least as much as for things that are easy. What you are proposing is implicitly giving players greater rewards for trying easy things.
The problem isn't gearing up, per se. The problem is having to kill a thousand of a mob, rather than ten of this and ten of that, and then you move on. Once you've killed something several times, you've proven that, in principle, you could kill thousands of it. For interesting gameplay, the thing to do at that point is for the game to say, there's no challenge left for you here, so go ahead and move on to something else. Make players do each set of content once. Don't make players do something a zillion times a in a row.
How can you say that quests don't make you do the same thing over and over again. Quest hub to Quest hub offers you nothing different expect the level of the mobs.
With group grinding you can pick any number of zones to level in at any given level which is nice because it makes you explore the world around you instead of following the same path as every other player before you.
Sooner or Later
There's an enormous difference between ten of these and twenty of those as opposed to a hundred of these and two hundred of those. In the case of Atlantica, it also entails way too much running back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. Making it free to lose but have to buy a ton of stuff from the item mall to win is also a problem.
Guild Wars fits my description much, much better. Do content for the sake of doing content, not for the sake of grinding.
I'm PRETTY sure all MMOs contribute to laziness.
A game that says you have to level up or gear up or whatever discourages you from doing things that don't level you. That is, it discourages you from trying something challenging for the sake fo getting a good challenge. If a game is supposed to be challenging, then it needs to reward players for trying things that are challenging at least as much as for things that are easy. What you are proposing is implicitly giving players greater rewards for trying easy things.
I can tell by your comments that you never played EQ1 because doing something challenging of the sake of a challenge was a daily thing for me. Why becuase it was fun to see if I could pull that off and when I did it was very rewarding because I knew if I failed I would lose something.
What Kain is propsing is making quest only for rare and cool items and group grinding for exp. Which gives you the best of both worlds in my mind. Quest are far and few between but they are worth it.
Sooner or Later
Well if your talking about vital spell components DDO is were alot of preperation needs to take place befor a run or it used. I used to play a ranger and a cleric. Ranger, need to bring enought sand and arrows. Sand was for a a bunch of his spells and arrows for his bow of course. and cleric forget about, you forget the candles, silver powders or w/e you cant buff and he party screams at you. Same with any class really. and for endless and pointless quests. ya i agree i think they should focus alot more on exploreing and grouping then thousands of quests. Nothing worse then doing a diffent quest with the same basic objective, (kill X amount, Collect X amount, or Kill X target) sems to sum up about 95% of all quests. not complaining just makeing a observation.
I am a huge DnD fan and the way you lvl up on the PnP one seems to be much more rewarding, and it takes time and patience. An the objectives are never the same really or at least i make sure they are not. Mabey instead of just grinding off the mobs and mindless PvP , mabey MMO's should take a diffrent look at lvling and MMO system its self. lots of dungons yes, every one who enjoys both pvp and pve dos enjoy dungons. But instead of like 4 thousand quests we have a dozen or so quests that are very long and very group orinted. This would make players be social and even friendly. You get exp for monsters them selfs yet every time you complete 1 step of your journey of the quest you would get a modest sum of exp. then after a week of doing group quests and following the story line you would get a larg sum of exp that would bring you up a lvl or at least close. This would make lvling alot slower and more statisfying at least to me and the players i know. Iam sure alot of MMO players love to speed run things to become "uber" or w/e they prefur to call them selfs but that seems very boreing to me. Combat should be more detalied then button smashing, and honestly even the best MMO's i player have a large amount of buttoning smashing. An that made alot of us lazy. IMO
Sorry just had to get that out there.
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Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.[/CENTER]
That is why I am waiting on Citadel of Sorcery - Check out this game, it is a way off from release but at least a developer is trying something new and different. It will have a quest system but not like we are used to.
Sooner or Later
Surely the future (whcih is already happening) will lead to a wide variety of MMOs. Some will be aimed at a small number of hardcore people and others mgiht be aimed at the casual mass market. The problem is that a lot of the hardcore want to play the games aimed at casual players because that's usually where the big numbers are at and they're the ones who find themselves unfulfilled.
Raymondo
There's an enormous difference between ten of these and twenty of those as opposed to a hundred of these and two hundred of those. In the case of Atlantica, it also entails way too much running back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. Making it free to lose but have to buy a ton of stuff from the item mall to win is also a problem.
Guild Wars fits my description much, much better. Do content for the sake of doing content, not for the sake of grinding.
Thats is because micro games suck balls. It requires you to pay then it will make it easier for you to play. That's why I don't play or pay on micro game at all. I just wanted to play it and see how its like until i get sick of it.
I rather pay for boxed game and pay monthly subscription than micro game. Good for you, stay at GW then.
Kain_Dale
i think that the new gen mmos tried to make the grind more fun. but they made a mistak in it. Instead of making the grind more fun and keep the length and amount of grinding content, they just made it easier and shorter. this was a bad idea.
MMos need intricate and in depth content. Thsi is something that has been kinda put to the waste side because:
1. it takes too long for casual gamers to get into games like that do to time constraints
2. MMOs devs have been trying to get WOW numbers so they try to make games as appealing as possible so they feel they need teh casual market.
the bottom line is they need to reinvent the grind. All games will have grind. Its impossible not to. you have to add risk to reward. they need to come up with more intricate ways to do it .
I agree 100%. Every game is going to have a grind and every MMO is a timesink. If MMOs were not timesinks we would not play them for years.
A developer needs to reinvent the MMO wheel. That has not happend in awhile. People need to understand that another game will never have WoW like numbers. (unless its Starcraft or Diablo MMO).
The main reason why WoW has the numbers it has is because of the huge Warcraft follow before there was even an MMO. Blizzard has always been good at making games for its core community.
Sooner or Later
I couldn't agree more with you. I have noticed allot game are like WoW. Its time for devs to come up with new "grinding system" and lower the quest system big time. Add up more solo content, lengthy grinding, leveling, but somehow it makes you feel rewarding sametime.
Kain_Dale
Cidatel of Sorcery seems interesting, I think I will free-trial it when its ready.
EDIT: the more i read about it, I dont know about it.. But I'll just wait for free-trial.. if there is none, then forget it.
Kain_Dale
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Yea future content patchs on games that I will not play because they are to dumbed down.
Casual games can enjoy "hardcore" MMOs. The casual gamers need to stop wanting everything for nothing. They need to understand that you will have to put forth some effrot to get a reward.
My Dad played EQ1 less then 5 hours a week and loved every minute he played and still talks about playing EQ1.
Sooner or Later
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
The REAL problem is that people that are new to games can and could not accept that something OP described as being fun.
Often they see things like that as a hassle, where other enjoyed it, but unfortunaly most don't care if others are enjoying certain aspect of certain games, so in turn the masses turn this genre is a easy to play type of handhold game, where challenge is lost, exploring died with teleports, discovery also died with marker on the map for what ever you might have to look for. Communication also dying, lets creat more public quest type of feature's WOHAAAA.....
Simply put people do not want to accept games for what they are, as seen with excuses like wait till you have kids or family which are such ignorant statements as it shows lack of responsibility and understand what you get yourself into when entering a MMORPG. If you feel playing this genre takes to much of your time, try playing less, if thats not possible just except the game might not be for you. That would make MMORPG evolve again, but aslong we have these unexperianced people trying to play games I fear games will become even more easyer with less and less depth.
First of all, with all do respect, I am not an inexperienced player or in any way new to games. I have been playing games since Atari 2600 was the newest thing. I was playing RPG's on BBS's on my 1200 baud modem. Second of all, I personally (I can't speak for Quizzical) was not saying that games with features the OP mentioned don't have value for some gamers. All I was trying to communicate is that it's not valid to make broad statements like all new MMO's are ruining the genre. If you are going to do that then you might as well whine about how video games have ruined the pen-and-paper rpgs. We have gotten so lazy with our graphics (we used to have to use our imagination to visualize what dungeons and monsters looked like) and the machine doing our dice rolls for us.
What I really need to comment on is the fact that you said when people mention having kids and a life as being an ignorant statement and an excuse. Man, that's what I call an ignorant statement. Having a family and a life do change things. Or it should. If not, then your priorities are seriously out of whack. I still like to game, but gaming has gone down in my priority list. I am not sure of your situation, but by saying that I can guess you don't have kids. Dude, these are just games. They are recreation, a hobby. I shouldn't have to think about what I am "taking on" with an MMORPG. It's not a job. I have no responsibility to these games. I should be able to play casually if I want and I certainly shouldn't be called irresponsible for doing so.
Last but not least. Let's all remember that as much we like games...they are a business. Companies are going to put in features that they feel will attract the most users (noob or hardcore) and thus the most money. This isn't going to change, ever.Those games that don't attract users and revenue are going to go the way of the dinosaur, no matter how valid or pure we think the game is. That's just the way it is. So if enough people think a game is loaded with tedious and painful tasks, even if some like it that way, the game will die. When that happens enough it becomes a trend. So like it or not, games are all about "the masses". And currently the masses are saying "I don't want to have to trudge across the globe in this game for 8 hours to gain 1 spell".
So I think some people preaching and ranting about how MMORPG's aren't hardcore enough anymore need to get down off their high horse.
Just my opinion.
Awesome post
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.