Thank you for your attention, I'll try to keep this brief. Often, enthusiastic game designers and would be game designers approach MMO game design with the goal to remove the grind from the game, so that the players can concentrate on having fun.  Often designers quote themselves as asking "Is this fun?" when they design functions and features.  Basic logic would dictate that someone who is playing a game, would be, by definition, trying to have fun.

This basic simple logic is absolutely wrong.  The Biggest Lie in MMO Game Design:
The Player wants to have fun.

This, makes so much sense, but it is so, incredibly incorrect its mindboggling.  The new MMO Player has no more interest in having fun playing their game of choice than Lebron James or Bobby Fisher.  Their goal, without exception, is to win.  They'll be glad to have fun along the way, make friends, be entertained, they'd love that, but fun is not the goal.  Not by a long shot.

How many times has an attempt to make the game more fun backfired horribly? Despite EvE's success, many players have logged out bored... if they can't level up, what is there to do? All they want is the next ship.  How desolate was Age of Conan's seige structure, all the fun available at low level, but the best achievement was to be found elsewhere, and so their PvP remains ill-used.

On the other hand, look at WoW, plenty of grinding, nothing special with the quests, but what's this? They constnatly reward their players with dings and whistles, and keep feeding them some epic this that or the other to aim towards.  Something to win. It's huge.

You may want to believe this lie of MMO game design because you, personally, want fun.  You know friends who want fun, and truth be told, there is a market for fun MMOs.  At the end of the day, however, those who want to win are a much greater number, and when it comes to plain old having fun, there are usually other things they'd rather be doing than playing an MMO, it's just that they can't 'WIN' at watching TV, or 'WIN' at playing outside.  But they can 'win' playing an MMO. And that's why they're there. That's where the money is.

But why am I telling you? You know all this already.

Feedback?

 you also have to think about the way all of this GEN MMO's are set up. Their rulesets and behind the scenes mechanics are simply DnD or DIKU muds. It relies on the grind which in all honesty isnt fun. You want to get bragging rights, 'haha i have a lvl 875 Warrior with my sword of imakeelu, and i pwn". Of course you can only get that way with the boring grind.

someone really needs to break away from the whole DIKU idea. Maybe then we can get somehwere in the genre, but until then i dont see much more then a similar game with a different skin and title in this GEN and the Next GEN MMO releases.

sadly, its not even that easy to get away from DIKU. all of our minds are set on the idea that an MMO has to be this and that.

so on all points, i agree with you :) good post.

That was a long winded rant to say that the more rewarding the game experience is, the more fun it is to the player.

I agree the more recent MMORPG gamer quality have declined.

I have to say, I am the type that want both fun and win.   However, I rather have fun if i can't pick both.

I am also not picky about which type of MMORPG I play nor have any hardcore opinions about any subject.  As long as the game play is decent and the community decently mature, I can play just about any game.  However, I think that is too much to ask these days.

I usually focus on playing the game before connecting with other players. Some people I enjoy playing with, while others I find completely insufferable.  My standard is not high, all they had to be was not a extra large douchebag.  Again, too much to ask perhaps.

My friends and I share the same view:  "If a game is not fun, why the hell play it?"

That is my 2 cents.

A.  A game that is grindy and old fashioned, but with good rewards will attract players.

B.  A game that is much less grindy with a newer slant on game play, but also with good rewards will attract even more players than option A.

Reward systems are only a part of the equation.  Rewards alone are not the answer.

Originally posted by LynxJSA

 

That was a long winded rant to say that the more rewarding the game experience is, the more fun it is to the player.

It would have been nice if you had worded that in a way to generate discussion instead of a way that invites insult. Are you trying to say that its a semantic distinction?

Originally posted by Hype

Thank you for your attention, I'll try to keep this brief. Often, enthusiastic game designers and would be game designers approach MMO game design with the goal to remove the grind from the game, so that the players can concentrate on having fun.  Often designers quote themselves as asking "Is this fun?" when they design functions and features.  Basic logic would dictate that someone who is playing a game, would be, by definition, trying to have fun.

This basic simple logic is absolutely wrong.  The Biggest Lie in MMO Game Design:
The Player wants to have fun.

This, makes so much sense, but it is so, incredibly incorrect its mindboggling.  The new MMO Player has no more interest in having fun playing their game of choice than Lebron James or Bobby Fisher.  Their goal, without exception, is to win.  They'll be glad to have fun along the way, make friends, be entertained, they'd love that, but fun is not the goal.  Not by a long shot.

How many times has an attempt to make the game more fun backfired horribly? Despite EvE's success, many players have logged out bored... if they can't level up, what is there to do? All they want is the next ship.  How desolate was Age of Conan's seige structure, all the fun available at low level, but the best achievement was to be found elsewhere, and so their PvP remains ill-used.

On the other hand, look at WoW, plenty of grinding, nothing special with the quests, but what's this? They constnatly reward their players with dings and whistles, and keep feeding them some epic this that or the other to aim towards.  Something to win. It's huge.

You may want to believe this lie of MMO game design because you, personally, want fun.  You know friends who want fun, and truth be told, there is a market for fun MMOs.  At the end of the day, however, those who want to win are a much greater number, and when it comes to plain old having fun, there are usually other things they'd rather be doing than playing an MMO, it's just that they can't 'WIN' at watching TV, or 'WIN' at playing outside.  But they can 'win' playing an MMO. And that's why they're there. That's where the money is.

But why am I telling you? You know all this already.

Feedback?

What about that? To win is fun.

Fun is a relative term, people play a game because they feel [invested] in it to start, or over time. Examples;

1. The Setting - people can be so wrapped-up in a game setting that all boredom is overridden by their love for that IP.

2. The Goods - collection, and the time invested in completing or simply building up that collection is enough to keep some people going.

3. The Grind - character development, and people can get so invested in a char after putting time in it that they may never leave (see EvE)

In fact, the majority reasons people play games, and continue to play them, is grind. The amount of effort needed to LvL-up is a clear-cut goal that drives players to reach it, and each milestone like that adds up into sentimentality then keeps the players from leaving. What happens with games where it's easy to max out and people have the smallest of gaps in difficulty from LvL 1 to the max LvL?

They find another game once bored of it, seeing how easy it was to pick up, get far, and let it go. Grind is good, whether people realise it or not, and it's a good reason as to why devs should never listen to players - because it's proven 80% of the planet has no idea what it really wants and yet will still claim they do.

Are you trying to say that its a semantic distinction?

In all actuality, it totally is... but since we are talking about the game industry, semantics and opinion are 90% of the discussion both in and out of closed doors. What do you think real devs talk about? 10 bucks says it's "what I think about all this". So in the end, all good things are brought down by people who either think too much, or not enough in the right perspective.

I agree 1000%. Mmo games are like real life. you go to school college work etc all in stages. Nobody like school or college (exept from the frat parties) or working but we all do it because we want the next level so  it is the same "next level" that keeps us going (retirement in the bahamas). MMOS the same thing, leveling crafting etc we dont do it because its fun (better than school i suppose:D) but because we want the next level. 

 What we have here is a problem with language.  The term "fun" is just as misleading as the term "win".  You’re not really trying to win, after all to "win" would be to reach some ultimate goal.  I might have chosen the word "accomplish".  I can reach hundreds of accomlishments without winning.

Basically it's all semantics.  Fun and win mean different things to different people and I think the OP over analyzed this fact, though after having said all that I do understand the point of the OP, even it was a tad long winded...

I want to pwn people.  I want three lamers to run at me when I have the flag and I want to kill them all because my gear and skills and spec out weigh theirs. 

I want to make tons of money playing the auction house.  The sword is up for 15g and it easily sells for 80g.

Flip it!!! 

I want to hit all the rich thorium veins in three different zones in half an hour.  Three toons, three zones, six stacks in 30 minutes.

Originally posted by Viper17

 you also have to think about the way all of this GEN MMO's are set up. Their rulesets and behind the scenes mechanics are simply DnD or DIKU muds. It relies on the grind which in all honesty isnt fun. You want to get bragging rights, 'haha i have a lvl 875 Warrior with my sword of imakeelu, and i pwn". Of course you can only get that way with the boring grind.

Agreed.

And also, it doesn't really matter if you are a lvl 875 warrior with a sword of imakeelu, because every other person on the server can be the exact same thing.

DIKU has outlived its usefulness to people who have imagination, but players continue to pay for it because they don't know how to do anything other than run on a treadmill, and devs continue to spew it out because that's where the money is.

Unfortunate on both counts.

Absolutely right. You have hit the nail on the head, and obviously so, which is the reason I laugh when I see players say "remove levels". That's like saying to the lab rat no more pellets for pushing that button. Its about achievement, and the anticipation of achievement, which is exciting and therefore, fun, but all in the context of an ultimate goal each player chooses of those possible in the game. Without these things there cannot be any "fun" long term.

Originally posted by Reborn17

Absolutely right. You have hit the nail on the head, and obviously so, which is the reason I laugh when I see players say "remove levels". That's like saying to the lab rat no more pellets for pushing that button. Its about achievement, and the anticipation of achievement, which is exciting and therefore, fun, but all in the context of an ultimate goal each player chooses of those possible in the game. Without these things there cannot be any "fun" long term.

levels sound more like immitating dopamine than fun.

How to reward a player is of course the question, but it is not only one.

And you are right in a way that a good game, does not necessarily have to be popular.

The difference between EVE and WoW is like between Planetscape: Torment and Diablo. But as we have seen catering to the latter crowd in both cases is more profitable.

The same thing with things like pop music and movies. It tells you quite a bit about society and thus when you are making business decisions about your customers segment, it should be no decision at all.

Originally posted by FikusOfAhazi

levels sound more like immitating dopamine than fun.

~and again, "fun" is a relative term.

I have "fun" playing games most of my friends would never touch, and admittedly, if they did they would hate it. Saying LvLs add to some kind of fun factor is not true either, but man did CoD4 make a statement when it did... I think LvLing, and how "fun" it can be percieved is based on correct pacing. If it takes too long, and the path through is too repetitive (ala Korean grinder) then people get over it quick. Things need to slow down in the end-LvLs, but they tend to take so long (and in some cases the cap never seems to end) that people will give up before maxing out - and in most cases where people do max out, they tend to bring up the choice in keeping with it or walking.

~also "win/pwn" is not a correct [reason] to why people play the games, but is a very, very, very big part of it.

The advent of Guild Wars' prepping to maxlvl for pure PvP and WoW's arena's attracted the FPS generation that would like to think it's all about winning, but in most MMO's you're not winning against anything unless all you do is PvP - and you [need] to PvE to get capable in that area when it comes to most games, and it's starting to ween people into it liking the PvE , slowly... but whenever you "win" a raid, or beat a quest, it's a tiny miniscule goal that brings you no closer to completing the actual game, at all. The mentality of a console gamer, the one that pines to "beat a game" simply cannot do so with an MMO, the content expands and suddenly you and everyone else are no longer on the last chapter. The only sense of "winning achievements" are in such small doses, but high quantity, that people are probably getting used to it, when in my opinion MMOs have too many quests that don't matter, but I feel if they took any longer then people "simply wouldn't have time/patience for them"...

I can only talk for myself but I want to have fun and be challenged in a MMO.

If I want to win I either play a FPS, RTS or a boardgame/tabletop.

Some people are of course very competetive and that could be fun at times, like PvP in Guildwars but I mostly play to have a good time, if a game bores me I quit no matter how much I win and if I die a lot I can still have fun.

Grinding the same crap over and over just bores me, I look forward to TOR myself.

And I seen few game devs trying to remove grinding, many games actually add more grind instead.

That's because everything can be 'perceived' as a grind.

Collection, character development, in-game money making, resource aquisiition,  NPC faction reputation, leaderboard advancement...

You do 'anything' long enough and it's a grind, only when you do something for the first time ever does it not seem that way. Then all you need is a seed to be planted, maybe a guy saying "I hate grinding out these swords to get better in crafting". Perhaps you thought of it first, but now that it's official via someone else - you can stew on it a little more, and soon everything is a grind. It's not a playstyle or byproduct of a time + effort = pacing coefficient as much as it's a [mentality].

You do it in single-player games all the time, getting lvls to kill a boss in an RPG, cutting through guys to reach a boss in Devil May Cry, or even farming your ass off in Harvest Moon in order to afford something. It's about [pacing], and without it there is no sense of accomplishement. Earliest example; The secret warp to lvl 8 in the original Super Mario Bros. How much did that trivialize the rest of the game? The contra code was neccesary for lightweights like me, but if you warp the pacing of a game to a serious extent, it becomes trite.

It's only once people got  together and affirmed with each other that something was "grind" that it actually became a commonplace term, that only now has been applied to single-player games.... and by those who played MMOs and picked up this mentality. It's simply a meme that has been able to change minds through popular opinion and I don't fall for it one bit. Just simple human psychology from the only generation that can actually feel some kind of social link through faceless communication like MMOs, myspace and Twitter... and lets face it, Internet Dating is on all fronts. Depending on how far you are willing to consider some internet stranger as a close friend, is how easy it is to pick up traits from them - and we all pick up things from those around us, and this includes the faceless ones. This is why we now have so many memes running around, because people spend too much time with a circle that propagates them. Though I thank South Park for making "pwned" the new catchphrase to those out of the usual loop.

If all games become unfavorable to the greater public thanks to outragious expectations for them in the future thanks to this phenomenon, then just know I said it first, and you can send my Nobel Peace Prize to me via FedEx.

I think people throw around the word "grind" too freely. To me, a grind is only a repetitive task without a goal beyond XP. If I am killing 150 wolves in LoTRO for a deed, it is my choice to achieve that goal. If I have run out of quests and killing 150 wolves is my only route to the next level, THAT is a grind. Just the way I feel about it. I understand it is a small distinction, but it is a world of difference to me.

---

Originally posted by GTwander
That's because everything can be 'perceived' as a grind.
Collection, character development, in-game money making, resource aquisiition,  NPC faction reputation, leaderboard advancement...
You do 'anything' long enough and it's a grind, only when you do something for the first time ever does it not seem that way. Then all you need is a seed to be planted, maybe a guy saying "I hate grinding out these swords to get better in crafting". Perhaps you thought of it first, but now that it's official via someone else - you can stew on it a little more, and soon everything is a grind. It's not a playstyle or byproduct of a time + effort = pacing coefficient as much as it's a [mentality].
You do it in single-player games all the time, getting lvls to kill a boss in an RPG, cutting through guys to reach a boss in Devil May Cry, or even farming your ass off in Harvest Moon in order to afford something. It's about [pacing], and without it there is no sense of accomplishement. Earliest example; The secret warp to lvl 8 in the original Super Mario Bros. How much did that trivialize the rest of the game? The contra code was neccesary for lightweights like me, but if you warp the pacing of a game to a serious extent, it becomes trite.
 
It's only once people got  together and affirmed with each other that something was "grind" that it actually became a commonplace term, that only now has been applied to single-player games.... and by those who played MMOs and picked up this mentality. It's simply a meme that has been able to change minds through popular opinion and I don't fall for it one bit. Just simple human psychology from the only generation that can actually feel some kind of social link through faceless communication like MMOs, myspace and Twitter... and lets face it, Internet Dating is on all fronts. Depending on how far you are willing to consider some internet stranger as a close friend, is how easy it is to pick up traits from them - and we all pick up things from those around us, and this includes the faceless ones. This is why we now have so many memes running around, because people spend too much time with a circle that propagates them. Though I thank South Park for making "pwned" the new catchphrase to those out of the usual loop.
If all games become unfavorable to the greater public thanks to outragious expectations for them in the future thanks to this phenomenon, then just know I said it first, and you can send my Nobel Peace Prize to me via FedEx.

---

Very well said GTwander. You deserve a cold beverage of your choice for that. NPP? Maybe not, but its a start :P

Reviewing my original post, I realize that the words I used were not precise, they were up for debate upon their meaning and, from some perspectives, mean the same thing.  Perhaps a better set of words would be Amusement and Accomplishment as opposed to fun and win.  There are certain activities that are, in themselves, amusing and "fun" regardless of how much you accomplish.

Perhaps that's not what developers mean when they ask "Is this fun?" Perhaps, when they're testing out a new system, before they actually finish the reward system, they are asking themselves "is this rewarding?" I'm not sure, I wasn't there.  

Good posts all around though.

All current MMOs are addicted to "power" based advancement.  Gaining levels and acquiring better gear is all these games are capable of doing.  Really what else is there that you could do in static worlds?

Are there other options? I believe so, but I also doubt all that many of them will be adopted in the foreseeable future.  The biggest problem is the players.  IMO motion sensing controls, voice input, and player (vs character) skill all have some potential- but there are many who would take issue with these.  Somehow, these are unfair- how dare I expect players to improve themselves while playing my game?  The proper way is of course to tie advancement to how many hours a day you can dedicate to killing mobs and punching out quests.  Let's see what else: living dynamic worlds?  No chance in hell, no matter how much I think I'd like it (there's too many reasons to list).

For most games there is nothing but acquiring that next level/piece of gear.  Your right it isn't much "fun", and that is why MMOs will remain a small niche in gaming.  F2P and solo friendly are 2 of their attempts to grow the market, and I'm sure there is a measure of success.  The problem is, MMOers demand all the uninteresting and unfun crap in these games, so they can e-peen about getting through it. 

Wise words GTWander :)

Players do want to have fun but developers really want players to have fun. Because well, their job relies on gaming customers. A big problem I see is that the demand for new and different mmo games is much higher for developers to develop (fully) fast enough while at the same time expect high quality. Furthermore, mmo gamers don''t usually sticking with their mmos and move on to the next new game like everyone does with non mmo games because what was fun in them isn't fun any more.

I like the way GTwander defines the grind as just a matter of pacing. I couldn't agree more.

I see the MMO grind more as a "nurture" process. You nurture your character, your ship or whatever... The fun comes with having him reached many milestones, like it would be for a seed that you're planting to make an apple tree grow. The fun is to see your tree get his first root, then first branch, first fruit etc... A MMO must be a never ending trees, and the pacing and reward for each milestones that it reaches is all what matters in order to keep nurturing it. If it's too fast, you'll just go plant another seed (play another game) because you feel like you have mastered how to make that seed succeed. If it's too long, (Korean grind) you'll just feel like your wasting your time with that seed, and it's not rewarding enough to justify your patience.

That's why WoW nailed it so good. Best pacing in their grind ever. Combine that with a strong IP and very polished product and their numbers are totally justified.

And no, i don't play WoW. Played it 3 months and got bored, but i don't consider myself as the mainstream type of guy either. Doesn't change anything to the fact that it's the best MMO outhere, and for a long time for reuniting pacing/polishing all under the same franchise.