Originally posted by Illius

I miss the genuine community feeling I used to get from it.  In today's releases people just segregate themselves into small guilds or guilds they've established years back and rarely if ever do they meet new people with fresh ideas.

I also miss the fact that most games nowadays focus a lot on the SELF.  I used to get the feel that people played more for a communal enjoyment then just trampling everyone in their path to reach a goal that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Well I'm such a person that does not grind in not one MMORPG ever played have I grinded, I consider that to be a very limited playstyle when I am into a MMORPG as grind is not needed but pure a playstyle that people put upon themselfs.

I am still into MMORPG for the community aspect, though when entering a new released game/MMORPG I often like to explore things solo, till I feel comfertable in knowing the game, then after a while the community will settle as well as I don't like community building within the first few months as many will often leave games in this genre, same goes for me if I am not enjoying the game within a few months I leave so feel no desire to bound with the community when I am not certain I will stick. After these months and still having fun I want to get to know more people, kinda like I do so in rl as I don't walk up to anyone and ask them to join my group, I really like to get to know that other player(s) and find like-minded gamers that are into this genre for more then just a limited playstyle.

I am also the helpfull type of player in MMORPG, kinda hte reason why I want to know most things a MMORPG has to offer and thankfully that's allot more then GRIND.

OP mentioned some MMORPG and spoke about those games being heavy on the grind, which suprises me to see so many people into this genre to have this very limited playstyle as all I see many speak of is grind/lvl/loot and gear, I mean why even play MMORPG if that's all this genre is to them. Those games did not have grind, it's people like I said that put the grind on themselfs.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

You have a broken memory.   DAoC had plenty of quests, all the way to 50.  You must have stopped at 20.  Take a writing course, you post is a hard read.

Hmmm, lol.. I think it's you who has a broken memory.. When did you start playing daoc? Because i know they added many quests later on but at the start there were not many at all, there was quests for items etc but it was not the way to level..

EQ had the worst grind originally due to what were called "hell levels."

Pre kunark (the first expansion)  the hell levels began at 30 and occurred every 5 levels up to 50.  These levels took forever, like a day of grinding in groups might get you a bubble of exp if that.  Dying meant losing all that exp.  Upon levelling from a hell level if you died you'd lose MORE exp per death.  One death usually meant losing a whole bub of exp.  

EQ devs would eventually remove the well named hell levels.

Not the least of which in the original EQ there was a total of 2 dungeons to level up to 50 in.  Solusek B and Lower Guk and these were usually always full.  Every single named spawn to random adds would be camped by groups.  Groups maintained lists for people who wanted to join.  You'd zone in and ask if a section was camped, if they had a list, then go out and either play an alt or wait.

I spent alot of my time levelling to 50 killing city guards which almost everyone did.  It wasn't until after kunarks addition they changed guards to be much stronger.

I miss the old mob grinding. Not because mob grinding is necessarily fun, but because we did it in groups. We grouped up, socialized, and even though we were doing a fairly boring task, we were doing it together and had fun because of it. Group mob grinds were and still are 100x more fun than a solo quest grind. I could grind in SWG all day because of the socialization aspect, yet I quit WoW because the quest grind was so boring I couldn't take it any more.

I don't miss the grind per say, I miss the social interactions and social inter-dependence, two of the biggest things today's developers seem to have forgotten.

I think games need a little bit of a grind to force you to kill so that you understand your character. More time spent killing is more time practicing. I miss games that are hard enough that you need to practice, though. The trend is continuing towards playing to the lowest common denominator, to make the most money. Same thing that happened in school; they taught to the slowest students (don't get me wrong, they need to learn to, I just wish there had been a group for faster students that met more than once a week) so I was constantly bored. Now I'm bored in most games because they are too easy.

PvE in DAOC was, most definately, a grind.  When you're standing in the exact same spot, hour after hour, killing the exact same mobs over and over...that's a grind.  Hell, the grind is why I quit playing DAOC.  I had my main up to 45 or so and just couldn't stand it any more.  Was much more fun to just jump into the BG and have at it for a few hours.  And that was the major flaw with that game. The RvR design was great and PvP was, for the most part, really fun at times.  So, why ruin it by installing a massive PvE grind that is only going to kill the end game RvR?

Newer MMOs have replaced that PvE grind with the quest train, which doesn't feel as grindy. However, they don't have nearly the end game that DAOC had.  For the most part, newer MMOs are just quest driven level fests.  Quest your way to the cap, re-roll, quest your way to the cap, re-roll...

One of the things I miss about oldschool games is the sense of accomplishment. Using EQ as an example, it could take an average player 3-6 months to get an EPIC weapon. I know it took some Paladins well over a year to finish theirs. When you got your EPIC in EQ, you felt a sense of pride and accomplishment for doing it.

This week in WoW, one of my sisters was able to get 2 top of the line lvl 80 EPIC weapons in under 15 minutes. If they hadn't dropped back to back she could have simply spent some gold and bought them instantly at the AH.

 Yeah pve in daoc was definitely a grind.  I too was stuck at 45 for awhile.  It wasn't until the first expansion was added that I got my second character to 50 in one of those AOE groups with the tiny munchin things.  EXP went through the roof in those groups with a couple spiritmasters.  I remember trying to level my buffbot and spending hours in that dungeon... forget the name but it had those walking bug things, arachnytes or something.

Originally posted by SwampRob

No game should ever make you run out of quests and therefore be forced to grind to the next level, ever.   Not at any level.  To do less is laziness.

 

I'm 47 irl so I'm also old school but games have improved, not gotten worse.  

 

Ya always remember the good stuff.

You're not oldschool if you think games have improved, or the only "oldschool" games you've played are terrible ones.

Originally posted by Scottc

Originally posted by SwampRob

No game should ever make you run out of quests and therefore be forced to grind to the next level, ever.   Not at any level.  To do less is laziness.

 

I'm 47 irl so I'm also old school but games have improved, not gotten worse.  

 

Ya always remember the good stuff.

You're not oldschool if you think games have improved, or the only "oldschool" games you've played are terrible ones.

You are deluding yourself if you think that all of the old school players think that the earlier games were better.

In most MMOs the average time a player sticks around in a game is 6-7 months. The older games will have a huge pool of past subscribers who played the game for a while then quit.

Originally posted by dhayes68

IMO what oldschoolers miss is community. I know its a matter of opinion and preference but a lot of recent releases and ones on the horizon play or sound like they're more like standalone RPG's with multiplayer, as opposed to MMO's.

Nah .. this oldschooler does not miss community. My current guild on WOW is as good as the bunch of people i play with in EQ in the old days.

People are people .. there is little difference. The big difference is the game. WOW is much much better game than EQ.

This made me laugh, I like the look of Aion, but it is not an answer to old school gamers issues about modern games. The OP takes the worst aspect of those old games and touts it as being the reason we will like Aion. Grind was a game mechanic more prevalent in older games, but that was not why we miss them. :)

Originally posted by SwampRob

No game should ever make you run out of quests and therefore be forced to grind to the next level, ever.   Not at any level.  To do less is laziness.

 

I'm 47 irl so I'm also old school but games have improved, not gotten worse.  

 

Ya always remember the good stuff.

Agree's and is 47 also.

But the O.P. brings up a good point, or at least gets me to thinking, as I play less and less, after a month, of any game now days.

What is it, thats happening? I know I dont want grind fests, but have, very very, found memories of total grinders. Before voice, and modern graphics.

Everyone else did also, it seemed. Lots of grouping and socializing, even away from the keyboard, in some cases. And to be honest I see them, doing the same.

We talk about it some, from time to time. Never really comming up with an answere, outside of it being the games fault.

Crap on a stick, is it me? The one constant thru these years? I dont even like cards or board games anymore, come to think of it.

I miss grouping with (almost) random people, without Ventrillo (how is that spelled) or the other similar thingy. I say "almost" cause in the "oldskool" days most people would knew the entire server quite a bit.

 I miss not having to hear squeaky voiced or other annoying sounding people coming through my computer via voice chat.  I hate being told to turn on vent, we did fine in the EQ days of raiding.  Sometimes peoples voices annoy me so much I feel like leaving the groups.

Originally posted by scuubeedoo

I miss grouping with (almost) random people, without Ventrillo (how is that spelled) or the other similar thingy. I say "almost" cause in the "oldskool" days most people would knew the entire server quite a bit.

Agree.  Grinding is in every game, and I miss grouping up on a regular basis, even with total strangers and grinding out  a camp and just socializing while we did it. 

Had some great times, met many good people.  One of my favorite was playing healer to a group that spoke only Japanese except for a few basic words, like "heal" or "come"

We explored some very deep levels of a dungeon I'd never been off the top level, and though I had no clue what their chatter was about, we had a successful run and afterwards the group leader always sent me a PM saying hello to me when he saw me online.  We never exchanged more than hellos, but it added to the magic of the game.

Just doesn't happen anymore, I'm playing Aion now and so busy running my solo quests that I barely have time to toss people a few buffs and move on my way. (we used to do that regularly in DAOC too)

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by scuubeedoo

I miss grouping with (almost) random people, without Ventrillo (how is that spelled) or the other similar thingy. I say "almost" cause in the "oldskool" days most people would knew the entire server quite a bit.

 

Agree.  Grinding is in every game, and I miss grouping up on a regular basis, even with total strangers and grinding out  a camp and just socializing while we did it. 

Had some great times, met many good people.  One of my favorite was playing healer to a group that spoke only Japanese except for a few basic words, like "heal" or "come"

We explored some very deep levels of a dungeon I'd never been off the top level, and though I had no clue what their chatter was about, we had a successful run and afterwards the group leader always sent me a PM saying hello to me when he saw me online.  We never exchanged more than hellos, but it added to the magic of the game.

Just doesn't happen anymore, I'm playing Aion now and so busy running my solo quests that I barely have time to toss people a few buffs and move on my way. (we used to do that regularly in DAOC too)

 

I agree much with these two posts. I have played some MMORPG's were there was a lot of grind, but I did not nececarilly hate it IF i was grouped. Grouping seems to be what the old schooler's miss. I know from my DAoC days 90% of the time I was in a group because the game almost forced you to (but this was a good thing). I love being in groups with just random people even if it is just to go through a dungeon to kill the same mobs over and over again. First off it always seem to go faster (even if it actually wasn't) when you were grouping. They need to bring back grouping somehow with like bonuses of some sort so that more people are tempted to group.

As for grinding my only idea would if they want to put grinding into a game, then they need to make it beneficial. Someone on here said something about like variety in the grind would make it more exciting. I agree with that, such as what if you uncover certain kind of monsters then that should be bonus exp. Or how about if I kill 30 of these types of guys (without having a quest for it) then I should get extra experience. Things like that. Well that is my two cents.

By the way... Does anyone know of an MMORPG as of right now that deals heavily with grouping?

I also agree with I miss the grouping/social aspect of the old school games. Though I think pre cu had it right where you could solo properly buffed up (to satisfy the solo crowd), but you relied on others to buff you, slice your weapon, cure your battlewounds, heck even the 10 minute shuttle wait, so it made you actually go out and talk with others in the game instead of today's mmo's where it is grind solo til endgame, then get forced into groups through raids.

I am so used to the soloing game, that I find myself hardly interacting with anyone but my guild, unlike the old days where you knew pretty much everyone on the server because you grouped with most of them. Maybe that is why I can not find that magical new MMO to keep me entertained like the old days =/

Originally posted by Abrahmm

I miss the old mob grinding. Not because mob grinding is necessarily fun, but because we did it in groups. We grouped up, socialized, and even though we were doing a fairly boring task, we were doing it together and had fun because of it. Group mob grinds were and still are 100x more fun than a solo quest grind. I could grind in SWG all day because of the socialization aspect, yet I quit WoW because the quest grind was so boring I couldn't take it any more.

I don't miss the grind per say, I miss the social interactions and social inter-dependence, two of the biggest things today's developers seem to have forgotten.

I agree with you completely. Even though SWG didn't have any real quests and all you were doing was grinding the same lairs over and over again I always had loads of fun because of the group I was with, and it usually didn't matter too much if it was my guild or just random people. I think personally a lot was because of the combat queue, since it was easy enough to queue up a bunch of attacks and then have time to chat and be social while still fighting.

I changed to WoW after the NGE along with a lot of friends, but somehow the social aspect was never the same. People still tried to talk, but since WoW required a much more active playing style even for PvE then there just wasn't as much random chatting and such.

Then more recently I tried playing WAR and nobody there ever says a single thing. I actually thought the game itself was rather fun, and I enjoyed how easy it was to log on and just do a few battlegrounds when I didn't have a lot of time, but there was IMO no sense of community in that game at all. I remember playing through 5 battlegrounds in a row and nobody in the team said a single word, and then when finally someone did talk it was only to complain and whine.

So yes, what I miss most are the social aspects and sense of community.

Originally posted by Abrahmm

I miss the old mob grinding. Not because mob grinding is necessarily fun, but because we did it in groups. We grouped up, socialized, and even though we were doing a fairly boring task, we were doing it together and had fun because of it. Group mob grinds were and still are 100x more fun than a solo quest grind. I could grind in SWG all day because of the socialization aspect, yet I quit WoW because the quest grind was so boring I couldn't take it any more.

I don't miss the grind per say, I miss the social interactions and social inter-dependence, two of the biggest things today's developers seem to have forgotten.

It's like you're reading my mind.  Seriously, WoW felt about one thousand times grindier to me than EQ for these exact reasons.  Levels went by tremendously faster in WoW but it still felt like a worse grind because it was so unbearably BORING.

God, endlessly running moronic errands for NPCs...alone.  Run over there and get that and bring it back.  Go talk to that guy, spin around three times, clap your hands than talk to him again.  Go to the other side of this hill and pick 10 daisies for me.  Blah, blah, blah, blah blah blah blah.  God I hate that crap.  I absolutely hate it.  The rewards you get for doing it aren't temptation enough to make me do it because all that crap is meaningless anyway in the grand scheme of things.

I suppose I did a lot of "grinding" in EQ but it didn't feel like a grind because that's not all it was about.  It was about grouping with people and interacting with people.  The grind was just there to give us something to do while we grouped with each other.  In WoW and later games it's all about the grind and nothing else.

I prefer grinding with little questing mixed in.  What I really dislike is questing for the sake of questing, having full quest log of quests because you can't level without quest exp.  I also dislike when a group tells me they don't wanna go that way because they have no quests that way, or that they don't want to kill something because there's no quest for it.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.... ffs

I find grinding fun personally. I like quests, but not overwhelming in numbers.  I like deciding where I want to go, not having my quest log decide where I should go everytime I login.  Unfortunately quest-on-a-rail is popular these days, so more and more MMO's are released with this design.

I can remember being approached by a couple of guys for a buff in DAOC. After the first got one the other said "Me 2". From that day on I have thought of people asking for buffs as the 'Me 2' crowd. :)

Old games had an element of difficulty that made you rely on other players; this in turn made them more social. You just end up playing a single player game if you have no reason to interact with other players, as a group, for buffing, for pvp etc.

The grind did add to the social aspect. The grind still exists but now we do solo grinding, so it has no redeeming features.
 

Originally posted by Alle90

Let's see, all the pre-WoW mmorpg's I have played had grinding..

DAoC - this game WAS a grind, there was kill quests up to lvl 20, and a few other quests but these were mostly for items and such.. I remember being in the vendo caverns with a spider group for hours at an end just killing spiders - at about lvl 20..
DAoC  was still fun as hell though and to me probably the best mmo experience i will ever have.

EQ - more quests, but still not to the extent of wow where you can quest every level, at all times, and never kill any mobs just for the exp without having a quest to kill it..
EQ was grindy as well..

SWG here we did combat missions, go there kill x number of sharnaffs/laris - everybody in a group took them and then off to the grinding.. killing 8-9 lairs and then epeat.. (this was old school SWG at release, and then at CU)
Pre-CU after the buffs got boosted and composite got added everyone did the same, but solo..
NGE came and there were ALOT quests, it sucked major balls..

Well the list can continue but i think the point is made.

Everyone complaining about Aions grind and all that.. I've always hated games with grind - or so i thought.. Thinking back after all these years of getting spolied in WoW, WAR, AoC, LoTRO with too many quests, I think I actually enjoy a little grind..
I'm not saying i want a game with no quests at all, i think Aion atm is perfect, many quests to do but there is also room for som old fashion grind :)

Wow have a lot of grind too, daily quests, faction grinding and so on.

But it isn't the lack or presence of grinding that makes a game good or not, it is how fun it is.

If a game is fun enough it can have a lot of grind or no whatsoever. And challenge is what is fun.

Grinding isn't a challenge. You just repeat the same crap over and over. That wasn't the point that made EQ fun and it wont make Aion fun either.

Personally I never really liked the grinding part and I been playing since Meridian 59. The great game had other good qualitys and also offers that wonderful feeling when you succeded in something that is really hard.

Wow, WAR, AoC and LOTRO are all comparibly easy. That is the problem.

But if you like doing the same thing over and over you could as well play Tetris instead, it is harder.

All MMOs have grinding.

The older games offered more competition and social adventures.  Wars to wage and loot to be had.  There was a point... and it was to beat the other guy.

A friend in our group got us all playing LOTRO.  I figured it was only 50 bucks to get the game and 3 months of play so what the hell, my friends are playing.  It's been a month and I'm bored out of my skull.  At first I had fun doing quests- they were new to me- as I've never played WoW.  Swore it off along with Tom Cruise, Twilight, reality tv and other such pop-culture turd nuggets over the years.

I'm pretty burned out now.  I don't see the point of leveling anymore aside to get to 60 so I can "finish" the game.  The crafting and housing aspects are extremely shallow, no play value there. 

PvE/Theme park games don't create lasting players.  They just create players who burn through the content and move onto the next PvE/Theme park game.  They come back for the expansions and the cycle continues.

You know what I miss? Mobs having  specific themes in specific locations. Now it seems like to get to whatever questing area you're going to you wind up wading through a field of insta-respawn trash mobs. You used to be able to actually clear a spawn or a dungeoun and know you'd been in a fight and the fight was over, at least for now. These days it seems like every time you step one inch off the beaten path your completely inundated with huge numbers of useless random trash mobs with no option but to grind your way through them or simply ignore the train you're pulling wherever you're going. I mean for Bob's sake wolves run in packs they don't stand evely spaced in fields. Not every inch of every road is infested with brigands. That's grind at it's worst. They were put there for the purpose of being able to kill the same mobs over and over never moving more than a few feet from towns.