OK here is the thing, I loved Diablo and D2 I ran D2 servers at one time. I even lost a job once because I couldn't stop playing D2, but D2 is NOT an MMORPG for me. My definition of a MMORPG has "persistance" meaning the world will be there tomorrow and the next day and for the forseeable future.

Tradeskills were brought into EQ for "solo content" thats what you did solo, you didn't go to dungeons solo cause you WOULD get ass raped and likely train a bunch of people who WOULD remember YOUR name.

The problem as far as I am concerned is that in many of todays games the solo content is rewarded every bit as handsomely as the group content, this brings one of my most puzzling questions to the forefront... why, WHY pay 15 bucks a month to solo in a "Masive MULTIPLAYER Online Game"???

Originally posted by drDamage

OK here is the thing, I loved Diablo and D2 I ran D2 servers at one time. I even lost a job once because I couldn't stop playing D2, but D2 is NOT an MMORPG for me. My definition of a MMORPG has "persistance" meaning the world will be there tomorrow and the next day and for the forseeable future.

Tradeskills were brought into EQ for "solo content" thats what you did solo, you didn't go to dungeons solo cause you WOULD get ass raped and likely train a bunch of people who WOULD remember YOUR name.

The problem as far as I am concerned is that in many of todays games the solo content is rewarded every bit as handsomely as the group content, this brings one of my most puzzling questions to the forefront... why, WHY pay 15 bucks a month to solo in a "Masive MULTIPLAYER Online Game"???

It's all about the radeing really.

That and getting all that uber gear.

But...  yes of course I agree...   soloing in a online game is stupid but thats what the 4.5M westerners that plays WoW prefers to do.       

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by Wickedjelly

I actually disagree.  I like trying to figure out puzzles and I like a good story but generally most mmos stories do suck ass so they aren't worth the time.  Granted I probably am in the minority.

I would enjoy it more though if your actions actually had an effect on the world like you mention AND a good story behind it.  No doubt that would be much more interesting.

 

If it's actually going to matter, I will read a bad story. It actually has info I need to play the game. Naturally, I would prefer a good story, but if it's going to impact the game world, it changes my interest dramatically.

But I see it like this:

blah blah blah and kill ten rats.

Best story in the universe, written by JK Rowling herself, and kill ten rats.

Best story in the Universe written by a collaboration of RA Salvatore and his three favorite Hugo Award winning authors, and kill ten rats.

They are all the same for me, kill ten rats. I'll read the book by JK and RA, and just skip the story in the game and go kill the ten rats.

LOL so true. I probably have not read a quest since "quest driven MMO's" have started and seems like all we get these days. I played EQ for probably 4 years I only did 1 quest I think...I can tell you for sure I do not remember the story at all but it was turn in 10 giant heads for some really good shoulder pads and I was a lard arse ogre and I had to use a shrink potion to turn it in.

See even back then it was 10 rats! So to  the crowd who thinks Blizzard created everything in MMO's!!! they didn't even create 10 rats! They just copied it sorta into 80 levels of 10 rats!

haha plus the fact I had to make or buy a shrink potion even though I was a shaman and could shrink inside not outside would have detered alot of the newer MMO players because games are meant to be "fun" and not hard they probably would have skipped the quest all together...

Guess my rant got off topic but yeah I think it would be hard to impliment huge world changing story lines without it feeling instanced ...but it would be nice if someone could pull it off.

Untill then I will keep clicking quickly through the text to find out what 10 beast i need to kill so my level 12 charatcer can ding 13.

Originally posted by Josher

Originally posted by Neanderthal

Originally posted by Josher

You're not evil if you're a min maxer.  BUT, you put sever limitations on your enjoyment of a game and this is a perfect example.  You HAVE TO advance in the most efficient way possible.  Not doing so makes you feel inferior and insecure, at a disadvantage.  Doing quests is more effficient for the most part so you feel you're forced to do them even though they're optional.  FUN for you is advancing the fastest and you'll do something NOT fun to do it.  Thats YOUR problem.  Not the gane.

Please, don't compare current questing with soloing or grouping in EQ or DAOC. The rate of advancement isn't anywhere close to the disparity of early MMOs.  In EQ or DAOC, you almost couldn't advance at all without grouping up at some point.  In both WOW and WAR you can solo grind mobs and still advance quite quickly.  Group ginrding red mobs a few levels above you ALSO nets you a lot of EXP.    You're blowing things waaaaaaaaay out of proporation.  But you're a min/maxer and if you're leveling .00002% slower than other people, it probably ruins your day. 

 

I see you're still using the ol' double standard that you used in the thread I started about this Josher.  On the one hand you say that if grouping gives faster experience then that's the same as making grouping a requirement.  But on the other hand you say that if solo quest grinding gives faster experience then that's just giving people another option.  In your heart I think you know that that's a load of BS.

And I am going to compare questing with soloing and grouping in EQ.  Because in EQ you could solo to gain levels.  If you picked a class that was good at soloing it wasn't even that much slower than grouping.  In fact, for a few classes it might have been faster.

But ok, for the most part in EQ grouping was the fastest way to level.  So you say it was forced grouping.  And yet in games in which solo quest grinding is the fastest and most rewarding way to level up you say those are not forcing people to solo quest grind.  Well what's the difference?  It's two sides of the same coin.  Why is the most rewarding activity forced when YOU don't like it and not forced when YOU do like it.  Has it ever occured to you that you might be behaving just a little hypocritically?

I would actually say that grouping in EQ was less forced than solo quest grinding is in WoW.  Because, by definition, you don't need people to solo with you.  But you do need people if you want to group and if everyone else is running around doing solo quests you aren't going to have much luck putting a group together.  I'm not saying it would be impossible to put together a group in a quest grind game but the hassle and time it would take to do it each time you played simply wouldn't be worth it.

I was refering more to EQ's glory days where soloing was painful.  The game wasn't designed at all for soloing until years later and even then, EQ's version of soloing is picking a class that doesn't make it painful.   WOW was designed as a questing game, a solong game, a grouping game or a combination of all of them, from day 1.  Grouping ALWAYS rewarded you best.  You gimped yourself by avoiding them and if your friends in the game prefer to play alone then with you....well, thats your problem.

Getting a group in WOW if you have FRIENDS consists of logging in.  Then the guild sees you and they say, "HEY, whats up!  We're doing a dungeon or were over in zone X or we're doing battleground Y,  wanna come?"  Thats all it took for me.  I had a group in a minute.  It took longer to get to the group;)  If that wasn't your experience, your guild sucked.  Don't blame the game.  Blame yourself.  Playing with the intent to just level as quickly a possible, skipping anything that might slow you down, like CONTENT or in your words, "gimp" yourself, its no wonder.  EQ imprinted some bad, bad playstyle s onto some people.

You're not gimping yourself that much by avoiding quests, but then you're complaining about questing in a game designed around quests.  People LOVE them.  You don't.  Is that Blizzard's fault or YOURS?  Its you.  Its YOUR problem.  Min/maxing ruins games for people in my experience.  Everytime someone starts bitching about EXP per hour or thinks in that mode all the time, you've already ruined the game.  Anyway, good luck finding a new MMO to play.  You'll be searching for a very, very, very long time, because questing isn't going away.  The ability to solo effectively isn't going away either.  I guess you're screwed=)

I can see by your discussion that Blizzard is the only way! But wait what about the people that do not think the way you do and we are sick of quest and we do not think EQ gave us a bad playstyle! Thats cool you got your game WOW and several half baked clones to run around busting out rat quest and not socializing with anyone! The most interaction I have had with people in these WOW clone MMO's is the one jerk who can't wait his turn in line in these fed-ex quest...you know the guy that sees you fighting the mob in front of the quest item and runs in and takes it anyways because hell who cares he got his Quest on! and he will probably not ever see you again.

Its cool to have an awesome SUCK free guild thats on 24/7 to wait for you to log on so they can say come to one of these many awesome places for your grouping needs! But what about the wild cards or the people you will never meet who could be awesome players because you just blew by him because he isn't on the same quest chain or hell why bother meeting him you can solo 10 rats anyways.

I like I said did not cut my teeth on WOW I played EQ and DAOC and AO then yes WOW and the clones( yes you lotro and WAR)

and I can tell you I got caught up in the quest quest quest to end level...because basically I do feel the need to advance my character Im not a min/maxer but I probably play sorta like one...if I just wanted to socialize all the time Id go into a chat room.

But I can tell you the games will hold your attention only for so long but its the people and friends you make that keeps you playing a MMO for 3 plus years.Even the raid guilds I was in WOW seemed more like people put together than true MMO buddies. Becuase its quest till level cap then try to fill a spot in a raid guild you know if they need X,Y,Z class not because you where a cool dude they leveled with  back in the day at level 20 but because hey you feel a speicalized role they need....turn around was high in all my  WOW guilds because alot of people just got together for the gear not because of the friendships forged through grouping.

These are my opinions and Im sure you see them differently just letting you know that there is more than just your VIEW. Also to say quest games are here to stay and will NEVER ever go away is a very limited view.

actually i have to agree with the op i never read the quests in some games like warcraft because they are nonsence . in other game like conan they do have some story behind them but you cant read them in some areas because if you do you ll be ganked silly by the time your finnished reading what it has to say .i think the job route is another road to go down in mmos but why not offer both that and quests and puzzles rather than limit yourself . i quite like doing quests but i would really like to see some real progressive storylines in an mmo .

Originally posted by Orthedos

Just replying to the first post of OP:

Players don't want this, players want that ... ok which player?  You?  Me?  Him?  Her?  That guy?  The neigherbor?

They are identical in tastes, in aspirations, in everything?

Will you start saying, doctors don't want money, engineers don't like to eat bananas, and ultimately, you will say, all human beings love B Spear.

Great sweeping conclusions indeed.  You talked for all of us.  Thank you, maybe you pay for my game account as well.

He spoke for me :) If that answers your question. Now if you wanna get nitpicky and get offended because he didn't word it perfectly thats cool. I just generally read a guys post then assume its his opinion then I discuss my opinions. Or you can get hung up on one word and try to derail and do nothing to advance to topic at all just like I have done just now by giving you this advice.

/resume thread

Originally posted by arthen999

actually i have to agree with the op i never read the quests in some games like warcraft because they are nonsence . in other game like conan they do have some story behind them but you cant read them in some areas because if you do you ll be ganked silly by the time your finnished reading what it has to say .i think the job route is another road to go down in mmos but why not offer both that and quests and puzzles rather than limit yourself . i quite like doing quests but i would really like to see some real progressive storylines in an mmo .

Good point I hadn't thought of. You shouldn't  expect players to stand around and read quest stories in a PvP area.

In most cases quest text is just long rant. In say WAR it may be awesome but it is long. In most other games it is just long. The only game that got me and alot of players to read texts was F2P Antlantica. The quest text there is very short and has kid book formating. At times you also get "quests" to retype word from quest text and the fastest way to do that is to actually read the few sentences. It has all the downfalls of poor translation and repetitive content but  people still read the childish soup opera quest text.

What is kind of getting lost in WoW talk is original WoW was quite ballanced. You were getting about the same XP questing or just killing. The biggest downfall were dungeons which did not give enough XP originally and had too large spread of mob levels (literary from zero XP to unkillable). When they fixed that they also bumped up quest rewards a ton so the whole ballance was lost before it was realized. There are parts in WoW like this where fixes came too late and mistakes shaped the game the way it is now. The quests were not clearly the best way to level and the gear was not so dominant and not everything was easy mode. It was all introduced later, due to mistakes becoming popular. Blame the players. The powerlevelling guides were getting more popular as the audience changed. Oh and there was this AQ opening quest line which was quite involved (lets put stupid guild grind aside) and long while only aimed at a few players and this Rhok quest which easily took a week and quite some preparations. They are things of the past.

As for big arrows pointing to your target - there are hardly any tools to find the target other way like tracking or gossips or logical lay of the land. And as for people asking stupid questions: "Mankirk wife" is notorius but is not asking around the natural way to solve such quest?

It is hard to tell what people want from MMO. What I wanted I guess is teamwork without social investment. But i guess times got too competitive and/or crowded. Hosting strangers became thing of folklore too.

Originally posted by drDamage

OK here is the thing, I loved Diablo and D2 I ran D2 servers at one time. I even lost a job once because I couldn't stop playing D2, but D2 is NOT an MMORPG for me. My definition of a MMORPG has "persistance" meaning the world will be there tomorrow and the next day and for the forseeable future.

Tradeskills were brought into EQ for "solo content" thats what you did solo, you didn't go to dungeons solo cause you WOULD get ass raped and likely train a bunch of people who WOULD remember YOUR name.

The problem as far as I am concerned is that in many of todays games the solo content is rewarded every bit as handsomely as the group content, this brings one of my most puzzling questions to the forefront... why, WHY pay 15 bucks a month to solo in a "Masive MULTIPLAYER Online Game"???

Because it is FUN? $15 a month is nothing. I spent more taking my kids to a 2hr movie.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by Orthedos

Just replying to the first post of OP:

Players don't want this, players want that ... ok which player?  You?  Me?  Him?  Her?  That guy?  The neigherbor?

They are identical in tastes, in aspirations, in everything?

Will you start saying, doctors don't want money, engineers don't like to eat bananas, and ultimately, you will say, all human beings love B Spear.

Great sweeping conclusions indeed.  You talked for all of us.  Thank you, maybe you pay for my game account as well.

 

I think if you read the OP it is clear that "players" means the majority of players in MMORPGs.

The statistics from teh quoted article should indicate that this is what is intended.

Statistics?  On the majority?  Did he perform a survey, based on a valid sample?  Of which portion of the gamers market?  His friends?  All the unknown number of millions who spent at least 6 hours a week online in a game or 10 hours a month or? which game?  List the games, does Diablo 2 count as MMO?  Come on, it is obvious no one can and will do such a survey.  And talk about statistics?
 

All I pointed out is the huge variety of interest, aspiration, play style, ... of each gamer, and you tell me about average statistics (absurdly presented with no quality assurance, such as sample design and measurement of error) of all gamers?

Good grief.

Originally posted by beeker255

Originally posted by Orthedos

Just replying to the first post of OP:

Players don't want this, players want that ... ok which player?  You?  Me?  Him?  Her?  That guy?  The neigherbor?

They are identical in tastes, in aspirations, in everything?

Will you start saying, doctors don't want money, engineers don't like to eat bananas, and ultimately, you will say, all human beings love B Spear.

Great sweeping conclusions indeed.  You talked for all of us.  Thank you, maybe you pay for my game account as well.

He spoke for me :) If that answers your question. Now if you wanna get nitpicky and get offended because he didn't word it perfectly thats cool. I just generally read a guys post then assume its his opinion then I discuss my opinions. Or you can get hung up on one word and try to derail and do nothing to advance to topic at all just like I have done just now by giving you this advice.

 

/resume thread

That is outright stupid.  He does not speak for you.  He said something and it happens you agree with him afterwards.  He did not speak for you b/c he does not know you.  Frankly no one knows who you are.

If I flip a coin and I say "head", I spoke for half of the world when they flip.  Do you mean this when you said he spoke for you.  Oh well, if that is what you mean, I don't care.  Any OP can say anything random and he will speak for some random persons eventually.  Good point.