Originally posted by dstar.

Originally posted by clik

I think maybe people are getting grind and boring mixed up.  Er wait.

 

Basically this.

What may be a "grind" to someone may be really freaking fun to another.  Aion has a grind, WoW has a grind, DAOC has a grind, it's which grind you like to participate in and have fun doing is what matters.

So are you saying that the time it takes to level is irrelevant?

It is a factor and since it is possible to reach the cap in one month the game cant be much of a grind. If you feel that 1 month is too much to reach the level cap then maybe you dont like the game to begin with and 1 week would be too much.

The point is that if it takes a dedicated player 1 month to hit the level cap then you can for sure say that leveling in this game isnt all that slow.

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by dstar.

Originally posted by clik

I think maybe people are getting grind and boring mixed up.  Er wait.

 

Basically this.

What may be a "grind" to someone may be really freaking fun to another.  Aion has a grind, WoW has a grind, DAOC has a grind, it's which grind you like to participate in and have fun doing is what matters.

 

So are you saying that the time it takes to level is irrelevant?

It is a factor and since it is possible to reach the cap in one month the game cant be much of a grind. If you feel that 1 month is too much to reach the level cap then maybe you dont like the game to begin with and 1 week would be too much.

The point is that if it takes a dedicated player 1 month to hit the level cap then you can for sure say that leveling in this game isnt all that slow.

Hey HOSS did I say anything about the time it takes?  No, I was saying people like different types of grinds.  If they find the damn game boring but find DAOC fun then they may enjoy that type of grind.

Originally posted by DuraheLL

OP:
Tell you what...

It's not the time it takes, it's what you DO meanwhile that counts.

If I were to sit here pressing simply "1" for one hour, and hit level cap by doing so, I would call it a grind. Because the entertainment value was so low and the repetetive factor was so high.

So, grind, no matter if it takes a month or a year, still depends on what you actually do and how much fun it is. Agree?

Well then by that logic, grind is subjective. So the game might not have any grind to some and then to others it does.

My preference to describing grind in a grind game is that you log in, go to a spot and kill mobs for hours. Come back and repeat.

And while one can do that in Aion if one so chooses there are many quests that one can do, same types of quests in wow or lotro, that give decent rewards and decent xp rewards at that.

I am aware that players feel that there aren't a lot of quests but from my experience it seems that they are expecting to go to one area, finish up that hub, and be sent to the next area, etc.

However, in Aion I can finish quests in one area and come back in a few levels and find some more quests.

Now whether or not the quests are decent that is up to the player. I find most of Aion's quests to be very generic. Still, there are some really nice quests that players most likely didn't even read the quest text.

The statue who has stood in a temple area for so long but who has lost its head and laments the change of the decades yet has no choice but to stand guard...

The woman who you meet who you then find out has been long dead, an evil thing who still pines for the object of her affection

The scarecrow who misses his mistress and feels abandoned, who was never given a head (I wonder if this is a theme or just the sick preference for one of the writers). You then find his mistress who herself has become and undead thing, stuck in her area. She remembers her old servant but doesn't have any power to help him. She asks you if you would go to the graveyard and find one of the open graves. In it there is a skeleton and perhaps her old servant might make use of its head as it is no longer needed.

But when you return it to the scarecrow with fond encouragement from his former mistress he then realizes that the head allows him to more clearly think and remember so many horrible things and wonders if it was better to be left in the dark instead of getting enlightenment.

there are stories beng told, only players seem more interested in the xp rewards and moving on.

Originally posted by bastii

Originally posted by Sidraket

 

There is no 'grind

 

 

HAHAHA LOL

As for a grind....huh? To many (WoW generation) think if it takes work to get some where, ie leveling etc, it's too much. Try lvling in classic EQ.

By far, Aion in the West is not perfect. Spaming, wings (why have wings if you can only fly 10 seconds?) no mounts, etc...

But what game is perfect?

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by DuraheLL

OP:
Tell you what...

It's not the time it takes, it's what you DO meanwhile that counts.

If I were to sit here pressing simply "1" for one hour, and hit level cap by doing so, I would call it a grind. Because the entertainment value was so low and the repetetive factor was so high.

So, grind, no matter if it takes a month or a year, still depends on what you actually do and how much fun it is. Agree?

 

Well then by that logic, grind is subjective. So the game might not have any grind to some and then to others it does.

My preference to describing grind in a grind game is that you log in, go to a spot and kill mobs for hours. Come back and repeat.

And while one can do that in Aion if one so chooses there are many quests that one can do, same types of quests in wow or lotro, that give decent rewards and decent xp rewards at that.

I am aware that players feel that there aren't a lot of quests but from my experience it seems that they are expecting to go to one area, finish up that hub, and be sent to the next area, etc.

However, in Aion I can finish quests in one area and come back in a few levels and find some more quests.

Now whether or not the quests are decent that is up to the player. I find most of Aion's quests to be very generic. Still, there are some really nice quests that players most likely didn't even read the quest text.

The statue who has stood in a temple area for so long but who has lost its head and laments the change of the decades yet has no choice but to stand guard...

The woman who you meet who you then find out has been long dead, an evil thing who still pines for the object of her affection

The scarecrow who misses his mistress and feels abandoned, who was never given a head (I wonder if this is a theme or just the sick preference for one of the writers). You then find his mistress who herself has become and undead thing, stuck in her area. She remembers her old servant but doesn't have any power to help him. She asks you if you would go to the graveyard and find one of the open graves. In it there is a skeleton and perhaps her old servant might make use of its head as it is no longer needed.

But when you return it to the scarecrow with fond encouragement from his former mistress he then realizes that the head allows him to more clearly think and remember so many horrible things and wonders if it was better to be left in the dark instead of getting enlightenment.

 

there are stories beng told, only players seem more interested in the xp rewards and moving on.

By all means, the quests in this game are very entertaining and fun to me. Also, as you say there are many crazy and fun quests like the scarecrow you mentioned.

What kills much of the joy though is that many quests are group based and still doesn't give that much EXP so finding a group to do them can be really difficult even though it should not compared to how easy it is to group up in other games.

I think expanding the EXP gain on quests will solve most such problems since I doubt the majorities really wants to just kill mobs most of the time. I could slay 1000 mobs in a row but I don't feel the need to do so unless a quest tells me that I shall do so and that I get a nice juicy EXP bonus once and a while

Try getting from level 40-42 then come tell me that you can handle the grind. :)

the only grinding I've had to do so far is from 24.5 to 25 there are quests EVERYWHERE , you just have to take the time to look around and find them. every level more quests become available to you so go get em tiger!

I am just baffled here at all the posters who feel the need to spend their days bashing a game just because they didn't like it.

for example: if you were not taken to the edge of your seat by your morning captain crunch would you go down to your local foods store and tell everyone looking at the cereal that it may have a good texture, but the flavor is average, and the packaging is overated. also it gets soggy 5 seconds faster then the mini wheats and it needs more sugar. then go into what a real cereal is?

just my two cents, take it or leave it

An MMO is SUPPOSED to be about what people find fun.  Not grind or unfun things that only become fun later in the game or fun things that are unfun at end level.

An MMO should be casual and easy since that is what most people enjoy.  A niche market game that focuses on heavy grind, unfun till certain points is fine, but it will stay a small game.  If a majority of people enjoy a game like wow, companies will try to do something similar, since that is what makes the most money.  Not a game of silly super hard grinding.

I started playing EQ in April 99. Level cap was 50. First expansion came out in March 2000 and raised level cap to 60. I was still only level 47 when that expansion came out. I played a lot. I know grind, and Aion is grind. That EQ grind was entertaining, imo. Aion grind is not entertaining, imo. It's the not entertaining part that draws so much attention to the grind, imo.

So because a bunch of hardcore gamers and by hardcore I mean zombies that play 12hrs+ a day reach max level, suddenly this game has no grind... bullllshhhiittttt.

For these guys 1 month is probably quite a lot.

Originally posted by Bigdavo

So because a bunch of hardcore gamers and by hardcore I mean zombies that play 12hrs+ a day reach max level, suddenly this game has no grind... bullllshhhiittttt.

For these guys 1 month is probably quite a lot.

Those people are the "Tardcore" and the first ones played 15+ hours a day for 18 days. They said the last level took 40+ hours of straight grinding.

Grind, IMO, is more about things being tedious and boring rather than taking a long time to accomplish. AION is both tedious and boring so it is a grind. Honestly how many times can you run a dungeon before you lose complete interest , especially when there is a high chance of ZERO loot as well as the XP sucking. Heck in your 30's you have to run fire temple 20+ times to level and thats assuming someone doesn't mess up and get you killed. After 3 runs I was completely bored of that dungeon since it offers no real challenge, loot, or XP.

Aion lacks content and things to keep it interesting so things become tedious and boring..That makes it a GRINDER.

 It's a game designed for the Korean PC bangs and time card pay-as-you-play gaming. That's why games like Aion focus on grinding and large-scale RvR. Players can just log in for however many hours and grind away playing the game like shoot-em-up and also easily form large groups for the RvR. Western players prefer to play at home with a long-term subscription, and prefer  story-driven mmorpg games.

Aion is a grind.

The question is: Is it a fun grind? No, it's not. Grouping is less exp if you're a DPS class. The 25-50 gameplay focuses on solo/duo grinding the same thing over and over for many hours with no zone/dungeon progression. Fucking BORING