Originally posted by kabana

 

 The problem I see is that the MMO's forget why we are playing online.  Interaction with other players is the key. 

   People are willing to spend insane amounts of time and energy in these games because the pay-off is bigger.  All the other players can see the results, and benefit from them or even die by them.  Hardcore and PVP players are the extreme proof of that.  But casual players like me start asking questions after a while.  Why am I spending so much time on this?  What's the point?  What am I getting out of this?  The fun factor starts slipping away.   Being online with people around the world to kill rats for X hours a week gets old.

   The game that has the right mix of leveling mobs, content, sandbox activities, immersive story, and social elements will be the next gen MMO :)  A game we can "play" and not "try to level".

  I'm keeping my eye on "Fallen Earth". 

 

 

I think you bring up a lot of good points. I would say even the hardcore pvpers feel that way. I love to play pvp games, but I also like to have a good story in the games that I play. It doesn't have to be a story in the traditional sense though. Think of it as a reason for the existence of my character. Ultimately the thing that many people try to find is a purpose for their own existence. In real life it is not so easy to figure out what that is, if there even is such a thing. In a virtual world it should be very easy, and one of the key elements of any mmorpg. Every player's character must have purpose. Otherwise people will leave the game. I think social aspects can help create a purpose to play the game, but they can't be the sole purpose, as many mmorpgs have tried to make them, and are failing miserably with such a shallow reason for the characters to exist. It must be something that is truly compelling, at least in the game world. Of course when all else fails simply making the game really fun to play is usually enough to keep people playing for a while. :)

Originally posted by Wolfrider

Originally posted by Samuraisword
I like grinding, it separates the men from the boys. Boys just lack endurance.

  Either that or have jobs, girlfriend, kids, a social life, etc. Grinding is something that is currently being tolerated by the MMO public simply because the novelty factor of the MMO hasn't quite worn off yet. It's getting there though, the genre is becoming saturated and there is ALOT of garbage out there. RF Online is a key example of a publisher that just didn't give a damn. I played it for 3 months (for an essay I was doing) and though I thought playing a game as homework would be great, it was more tiring than doing the research.

I'm one of those players that hates the idea of XP in general. The whole reason XP exists  in pen and paper RPGs is that there is no objective way to test a players skill. In chess, checkers, go, action games, FPSs, sports, you simply get better with time. Because pen and paper RPGs exist largely in the heads of players, that skill progression has to be emulated. There is no reason (apart from tech restrictions and now, force of habit) to include any kind of leveling system in any RPG. Live combat people. Non fetch-quests that are Zelda and puzzle like in nature, well designed dungeons that make you think. Skills that require player interaction rather than randomly generated output with a few modifiers tacked on. A REAL STORY.

Teh Grind is just about designer laziness. And I get that MMOs require alot of time, money and resources to put together and current technical limitations don't make everything listed above plausible. But at least some of it is.

Of course, players share the blame here. You're the one paying the subscription fees. Speak with your wallet.

/agree I've thought for a long time now that mmorpgs should be leveless. and puzzle like quests, and stories etc. all good ideas. what i don't need is a boss that is 100 levels higher than my 10 man raid and casts ridiculous spells, and has too many hit points etc. in fact being limited as to the number of people you can bring into a dungeon is stupid.

Originally posted by Settingsun
Mmos cost a huge amount of money to make, so there just isn't enough to go around cuts need to be made somewhere.
You can make the world smaller (but add pathing to make it seem bigging), you can limit the number of races and classes, you can have limited customization or you can use kill X mob and fed-ex quests and grinding. The point being a dev has to make cuts somewhere or they risk running out of money and releasing a half done game or selling off their game engine to bring in some cash.

Maybe in time as the idea of game modules become more popular, overhead cost will lower and the grind will fade away. Of course all games will look and play sorta the same, but you can't have everything.

Seems like most development teams don't build their own engine's anymore. There's plenty of good technology nowadays that's easy to get. And there's tons of modules too. In fact the mmorpg genre has been moduled to death. There are so many different crafting modules out there it's disgusting. I really don't think technology, at least software is limiting the genre at this point. It's really the minds of developers, and really players to some extent, because that's who the devs are as well.

Originally posted by xxGuyxx
Every MMORPG needs at least a little grinding, otherwise everyone would be max level within a month, and then the game would be incredibly boring. On the other hand, certain games could use a lot less of a grind(*cough*Maplestory*cough*Conquer Online*cough). I think there should multiple options for  leveling. In one game I play there are multiple options for a player to level, starting at 15, then even more options at higher levels(although most of the time there's only one really good option with the others giving a bit less exp).

I want to know why you think that everyone being the same, maxxed level, would make the game more boring, than having a few people at max level and the majority spread out along the levels. In my mind if the game is boring having everyone at lvl 100, then it is just as boring having everyone at lvl 1. That seems logical to me. The element of fun shouldn't spring forth from having a nice even spread of levels between all of the pcs on your servers. It should probably be built into the game itself. And the game shouldn't stop being fun when you reach max level. Which is why levels are useless and should be removed. Some natural time based progression should be used. I like EvE's system somewhat, but I wouldn't duplicate it.

i was jsut pointing at what  was said  about getting to lvl 20 in a week and have fun, too me it reflects well what happen in mmorpg's in general i means rush themax lvl  like if only the high lvl  content was worth it  and THATs what  takes away lot of fun un a MMORPG imo ;)

Many mmorpgs don't have anything worth taking your time on, and the more interesting things, like raiding, or the various forms of pvp can't be done until max level. Since the concept of "endgame" is such a focus for developers they tend to not do a very good job of making the experience from lvl 1 to w/e max level is very interesting or compelling. The quests are extremely shallow, they lack continuity, or something that might tie them all together. The focus tends to be on the rewards that a player can gain from the quests, such as items, money, exp, instead of focusing on how the player can affect the world in which they exist in depending on what choices he/she makes from the very beginning of his/her life.

Just to add my 2 cents, I think that if you want to get rid of the 'grind' then you have to get rid of what drives it, namely the entire focus of the game being on acquiring successively more powerful levels, skills, or loot.  Most games, no matter what other features they have, mainly have one thing to do, and that is to kill mobs or run quests to acquire the xp or loot to be able to do the same thing against nastier mobs. 

We have to say goodbye to this sort of thing if we ever want to see something different.  If ever there could be a game where there was no such thing as a level 60 thief, but simply a guy with some training and skills and items that are not uber in any way, who tries to steal stuff using his basic skills and items and MAINLY his ability to assess situations, find an opening, and think on his feet.   But of course what would the guy be stealing?  There would have to be a real economy in place based on private player property in the larger context of player controlled political factions, etc. etc. etc.

In other words, a game where the goals were set by the players, opening up countless situations and things to do OTHER than grinding against mobs for arbitrary returns of xp and loot.  If such things didn't exist, there would be no grid. 

Fear not those that enjoy the grind and the shiny loot.  There is NO shortage of such game mechanics, so I'm not sure why you'd even waste your time in a discussion about something different.

Thats why i play EVE online.

I dont need to grind mobs/quests/reputation to be good.

Just  fly around all day, pirate/pvp fun alone, go hang with my m8s on abit of hunting or mining escorting and get nice cash or equipment without feeling its like a JOB.

It still has the best economy, graphics, comunity and content of any game out there.

You want to trade or build or handle diplomatic relations or PVP or just PVE and have fun doing it.. its the game for you.

Its a game for the smart and more mature people i could say and those who HAVE the most free time wont get the best things like in most MMOs out there.

Sure alot of peeps say its a difficult game and they dont understand it. But if u have patience and give it a week then you will discover the greatest MMO out there.

Well sure if u want a BIG SWORD and endless beating on mobs this isnt the game for ya.

Although we got the HUGE ships and the BIG cannons :p and the biggest virtual world out there. Everything is on one server and everyone is in there. FUN.

Great article btw. and its very true that most MMOS feel like a job .. you need to play alot to be GOOD and the fun factor goes away.

EVE success is that there is no leveling. and the skills u need to train can be trained in time you dont have to be online. smartest thing i saw yet in a game.

I just have high hopes for Star Trek online. hopefully it will deliver. but if S.F. isnt your thing you'll have to wait for another game and hope it doesnt have DRAGONS in it AGAIN.

People grind missions or grind NPCs or grind PvP for isk in EVE. You may not consider those things grinding,it's all subjective. I don't consider killing NPCs constantly in a fantasy based MMOG grinding either.

Sure they do but I was saying you dont have to. You dont have to grind anything and you can still have great fun without worring you wont have enough money or great equipment. You dont have to constantly do anything in particular to be great and have the most of fun.

Great article.


I couldn't agree more that MMO's are now becoming peoples second jobs. However I don't mind grinding under the right circumstances, hell I love it. Before and after the release of SI for DAoC(pre-Moderngrav) I had so much fun grinding with groups, it didn't feel like a grind mainly because there was always people around to group with and the community was amazing so I never focused on the amount of XP I was getting. There where also many places to level in DAoC, we could kills some mobs in a camp then run to a dungeon. Not to mention DAoC used a forced grouping model for there game, so grouping was the fastest way to level.

I prefer a forced group grinding system to WoW's solo/group quest system.  All I ever do is focus on my exp, WoW's system is just forced grinding and feels more like grinding then DAoC did.

Everything the article covered I would have say is exactly correct. It was even very cleverly put with his 'grinding him in the forums'. Very clever...
Anyway, I hate admitting that I've accepted the grind of an unfinished game. I feel ashamed almost. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 12 times, shame on me. But I guess if these developers could at least disguise this grind in unique ways (such as questing). DISGUISE YOUR GRIND BETTER!! PLEASE!! And I believe that more and more people are starting to not play these unfinished games at their release. There are a lot of games that head for the toilet like StarWars and Matrix cause they truly are unfinished and they expect people to pay for this. I play WoW and I know there are gliches in the world but at least they are not anything extreme. I think it really only has graphical unfinished business.
But I'm getting off topic here...if there is someone out there that can create a new game style for the MMORPG then I tip my hat to thee. And count me in for your game title!

Comment moved to new thread.

Is it a grind or not?

MMOg's are all about developing a character, making it stronger so that you can explore more areas and aquire more wealth in game. Unfortunately this is considered a grind because more often than not the game design is such that it is, indeed a grind.

Level games have made grinding an accepted part of gameplay. Leveled zones, where you grind out quests and critters so that you can level and proceed to the next zone to grind. Each time going back to the trainer to get your abilities, and turning in quests, to be led to your next destination by new quests and a new grind. Usually with spare critters there to kill just to make up any points you may need to get your next level in that zone.

So that's the level game, and the level games have defined the grind.

Skill progression can also be considered a grind, but not usually the same way. In fact in skill progression games you don't call it a grind, you call it training (or at least I do). Mainly because you are developing a particular skill, and not your overall level. It's fine tuning character development, or developing your character in a more realistic process.

It's not neccesary to design zones of advancement where quests and critters have an overall value designed for level progression and world exploration, but one where critters can be more widely dispersed in difficulty, and quests alone can insure content consumption by design (the trail of breadcrumbs).

In this way the "grind" is disguised as something else. Yes it is still a grind in skills, but one that has much more variety and does not seem so repetitive as in level games. If it does resemble repetition, then the developer is to blame for a lack of imagination.

In skills you choose what to grind, where to grind, and when to grind... and in having that freedom. It really does'nt seem like much of a grind at all. More like farming out your choices in loot and experience from spawns. A freedom of choices in areas to go to, and quests to pursue, that meet your specific needs in character development, or the template you have chosen to pursue. Usually many choices that offer the same experience, but with different tactics and adventure. So much less like a grind.

UO was like this, it was a skills game, and without the feeling of a grind at any point in character progression. It was a constant adventure. I think when UO became more of a grind is when too much control was given to players in skill gains with locks and arrows. Prior to that, there was more motivation to develop characters naturally.

Grinds are more associated with level games, because that is the nature of the beast. You must grind to progress. Can it be done in more creative ways? Can zones not be designated for particular character levels and offer more variety and random events? I feel they can, and feel this would remove much of the grind I associate with level progression.

I just feel level games make grinds more apparent or noticeable. Make playing more like work and less like fun. Unfortunately most designers have chosen the level formula AKA EQ/WoW, as it evolved from pen and paper. Rather than computing skill gain as per activity, it's computed mainly by a combination of skill + level, your activity is restricted by class choice and what weapons and abilities are available. Again Less freedom, or fewer options, making it more repetitive, more of a grind.

I've given up on level MMOg's
I'm sick and Tired of the grind...

Grinding doesn't seem quite as bad in D&D because if you pay attention the story and world is tailored more towards you being a hero and if you have a good DM you should feel closer to your character. Each level is like a birthday and each level is remembered as something important like the Vast Infinite Dungeon of Doom where the party killed the Great Dragon of Blah blah blah. Too often, most MMORPGs fail to give "life" to their creations like a DM would for PnP D&D. I am 21st lvl in Vanguard. In those levels I enjoyed infiltrating an enemy camp and doing a test to prove my worthiness to my tribe in a dungeon that was more than just random mobs. That's less than two levels worth of quests out of 21. Everything else has been kill 20 Hobgoblins or kill 15 Ants or collect 20 Halfling hearts or just for a little variety, Take this letter/sack of  potatoes to someone in the next town etc. Very little story is conveyed and even quests become so monotonous after a while that you end up grinding just so you don't have to figure out where 20 Fire Beetle testacles are.

A DM only has a voice as a tool and good ones tend to do so much more than an entire company does with visuals, sound, and technology. Quests are a viable way to hide the grind but it's pretty obvious to see the shallow kill and delivery quests as being as big of a time sink as grinding mobs. Dungeons also become a cave of ants, a castle of skeletons, a cave of rogues, a castle of rogue knights with very little lore or thought put into most of it.  Most games definitely feel like the developers always bit off more than they should and sometime in beta 4 they woke up and shoved 20 more trash mobs of various levels in the game, 10 more dungeons with no lore, and 200 more quests of kill 10-20 "insert random trash mobs" here and deliver this to "point A".

By definition, my idea of a 3rd generation game is to break this pattern.

Originally posted by JYCowboy

SWG was mentioned so I need to add that Pre-NGE Galaxies was kinda dependent on Grinding.  It had multiple xp pools to feed the varied skill based professions.  Scouting xp was different from Pistol xp, though earned simularly.  Why was grinding acceptable (to a degree) in SWG?  Large groups made for interesting conversations.  The odds were high for it with groups up to 20 players.  Most of the time, the Loot/Resources gathered had a value and there was always a chance to score something useful (i.e. Legedary Weapons).  The intensity to grind was high also when xp was traded for Jedi xp during the Village Unlock period for Jedi.  I found grinding most fun when there was a quest goal attached such as the Padwan or Knight Trials.  The only grind in SWG that about killed me was the Crafting Grind.  Grinding for (Force Sensitive) Master Crafter just about did me in.  Why was this tolarble?  These were forms of Achievement that were very rewarding for gameplay.  This would still be true if Jedi was not a starting profession and a alpha class in the NGE.

 

The public has spoken, however, and Sandbox MMO gameplay do not make the big bucks.  In truth, what MMO is a 2nd rate smash hit compared to WOW?  Nobody else has come close to hitting those numbers.  I think the question is more than what did Blizzard do right but why hasn't anyone repeated Blizzards success?

 

I agree that grinding is much of a solution to content when enough can't be developed.  I would also say that any content in (payed for) expansions that award high xp is a built in mechanic to sell the product.  There is good and bad with grinding and having alternatives to any system or sub-system can't be bad.  Variety is the spice of life.  Though the game has troubles, I think Vanguard did something great to add the Negoiation (Political) system in as an alternative to fighting.

You forgot to mention the jedi grind itself.. the mother of all grinds. (A finished jedi template was about 11millon xp) For me in PreCU days it was worth it even tho it was hard as hell, it was the path leading to the alpha class and most respected by my opinion. U had to stay "hidden" from NPC and Players or else ud get on the bounty hunter terminal and if killed ud loose up to a weeks worth of grinding xp. At preCU launch i lost 2 million jedi xp cuz of bug when gaining only about 500-1000xp i per kill it kinda hurt a bit.

Alas playing as Bounty Hunter myself most of the time I had it coming

Wumi - PreCU Bloodfin

A way to lessen the feel of grind I think would be to make battles more fluid like a movie battle.  Right now when you fight something in a game your either fighting 1 at a time or you have an AOE move.  One thing The Matrix Online tried to do is make all the moves fluid so it looks like your going from one to another in a constant fluid motion instead (they tried but it still didn't look that fluid...atleast when I played the beta).  In movies and also in FPS games the fighting seems more realistic so when your playing and killing things for hours and hours it doesn't seem like a grind.  With most current MMO's though you make a move and that single move you make is the same move over and over and over again.  On top of that you have several of those type of moves that are the same, and on top of that there is a slight delay between moves that makes it seem less fluid.  As MMO's get more mature you'll see more fluid moves and you'll also see counter moves..  Right now most MMO's you have a percentage to dodge, but you don't actually duck, dodge and you can't fight around cover.  The reason I'm bringing all this is because I think in our minds when we play MMO's we want to feel like we're in a movie epic and its not quite there yet.  We're still limited in moves and what we can do so as we go out and fight and kill the 100th rat it just seems like a grind.  As you kill monsters of the same type they all look the same so it looks like we're killing 100 cloned rats.  Plus we walk around and we see clones of ourselves (except COH and COV did an awsome job of making everyone unique looking).  All these things are in our head and it seems like a grind.  I think with Direct X 10 and 64 bit, and faster processors and better graphics and more people having faster broadband, we'll see a change.  A lot of it has to do with technology, what can the devs do with what they have to make us have fun.  Sure maybe they could do some things to make the grind seem less of a grind, but there will always be grind its just how its masked.  I don't think less killing is it, we all love playing games where we can kill things, I think its options and look and feel that will take away the feel of the grind.

Originally posted by CaesarsGhost
I dunno... I miss the days when you were expected to go out and kill stuff on your own instead of getting quested through everything level by level.

I think you are mixing up two issues. Certainly questing is an effort to add some interesting wrinkles and to guide players so as to avoid the tendency for killing everything that can be targeted. The greater issue is the requirement for constant repetition in the first place. Grinding refers not just to killing things, but to activities in crafting and harvesting as well. Quests can provide alternative directed goals, and can be more or less hand-holding with respect to helping players along.

I find that many players are not tolerant of any ambiguity or difficulty at all with respect to finding things. I see shouted requests all the time about where to find such-and-such or so-and-so, sometimes in spite of the fact that waypoints are given and the items or NPCs sought metaphorically "glow in the dark" with "look at me" graphical cues. What this means is that many players prefer the certainty of grinding along a steady and certain path to taking a chance on the undiscovered or unknown. I think this speaks to player motivation, which tends to be more strongly oriented toward achieving defined goals and surpassing other players than discovering things that few others have at the risk of achieving nothing at all. There are several more discussions capable of taking off from that point, so I'll leave it be.

 

Originally posted by ironore
Just to add my 2 cents, I think that if you want to get rid of the 'grind' then you have to get rid of what drives it, namely the entire focus of the game being on acquiring successively more powerful levels, skills, or loot.  Most games, no matter what other features they have, mainly have one thing to do, and that is to kill mobs or run quests to acquire the xp or loot to be able to do the same thing against nastier mobs. 

We have to say goodbye to this sort of thing if we ever want to see something different.  If ever there could be a game where there was no such thing as a level 60 thief, but simply a guy with some training and skills and items that are not uber in any way, who tries to steal stuff using his basic skills and items and MAINLY his ability to assess situations, find an opening, and think on his feet.   But of course what would the guy be stealing?  There would have to be a real economy in place based on private player property in the larger context of player controlled political factions, etc. etc. etc.

In other words, a game where the goals were set by the players, opening up countless situations and things to do OTHER than grinding against mobs for arbitrary returns of xp and loot.  If such things didn't exist, there would be no grid. 

Fear not those that enjoy the grind and the shiny loot.  There is NO shortage of such game mechanics, so I'm not sure why you'd even waste your time in a discussion about something different.

  I agree with your point about players having to create situations, but I think the game should create the launching point for the players to do this.  The reason is so that all players are on the same page,  so they know what's possible to do in-game, and so they know how to do it.

  Using your thief example, let's say the game made a market where there were NPC's and other players with stalls, and the items for sale were actually sitting on tables.  Players can walk by and see what's for sale without having to click on the box-over-the-head deal, and have the real danger of their items being stolen.   The thief has the real danger of being caught.  (Now that I think about it, Fable did this exactly.)  This scenario would give cause  for players to hire a guard, or hire a bounty hunter, and maybe a crime and punishment system.  It could lead to a lot of non-combat content.

 

Originally posted by Poldano

Originally posted by CaesarsGhost
I dunno... I miss the days when you were expected to go out and kill stuff on your own instead of getting quested through everything level by level.

I think you are mixing up two issues. Certainly questing is an effort to add some interesting wrinkles and to guide players so as to avoid the tendency for killing everything that can be targeted. The greater issue is the requirement for constant repetition in the first place. Grinding refers not just to killing things, but to activities in crafting and harvesting as well. Quests can provide alternative directed goals, and can be more or less hand-holding with respect to helping players along.

I find that many players are not tolerant of any ambiguity or difficulty at all with respect to finding things. I see shouted requests all the time about where to find such-and-such or so-and-so, sometimes in spite of the fact that waypoints are given and the items or NPCs sought metaphorically "glow in the dark" with "look at me" graphical cues. What this means is that many players prefer the certainty of grinding along a steady and certain path to taking a chance on the undiscovered or unknown. I think this speaks to player motivation, which tends to be more strongly oriented toward achieving defined goals and surpassing other players than discovering things that few others have at the risk of achieving nothing at all. There are several more discussions capable of taking off from that point, so I'll leave it be.

 

  You made a great point there.  I wonder if those players prefer it that way or are so overexposed to that style of questing?  Probably both.  I also wonder if they would appreciate a more creative, interactive gameplay if given the choice. 

 

People are choosing to quest in newer games because the quests generally offer more experience, but the quests in newer games are really  tasks and they are a form of grinding. In newer game you just run thru these tasks ignoring the text because it really is unimportant since all the questgivers are easily identified by icons or glows, there is no problemsolving required since everything is spelled out in detail, and minimaps direct you where to go and whom to see.

In old school EQ1, killing mobs offered more experience than quests usually, and because of all the random rare spawns, there was value in hunting in the same zone for a long period of time. Periodically you would discover a new rare spawn or figure out placeholder triggers. There are still rare mobs in N Karana I never saw after 4 years of playing. That type of design made hunting interesting and less of a grind, because of the unexpected. It was like a real world and made the game immersive.