I'm not understanding this complaint.  Some people act like theres some significant difference in how much EXP you gain.  For example, in WOW or WAR there isn't much.  Its not like the difference in EQ or DAOC where soloing was so painfully slow and mind numbing, you felt forced to group up just to see some sort of exp gain.

In WAR, the quest Exp is actually quite laughable.  You could just grind mobs and lvl up MUCH faster.  You kind of have to grind mobs at some point since there aren't enough quests to rely on them solely.  WOW has a lot more quests and you never have to grind if you don't want to, but even then, ONLY questing has never produced any sort of huge advantage over just grinding or a combination of both.  Its been proven a while back.  I can't provide the links, since they're burried over at the VNboards;)   The difference in leveling rate is nominal, only noticable to the most nerdiest of math whores.  Besides, if you're MIN/MAXing in WOW, instead of just enjoying the experience and doing what you want, the entire concept is totally lost on you.  Thats EQ's and DAOC's fault for instilling that garbage in your head int he first place.   You HAD to Min/Max, figuring out where the ideal camping spots were, ect, just to advance at a reasonable pace.  Random exploration was met with very little gain.  Doing a quest rarely offered any real reward worth having and the stories were no better than in WOW.   Every quest isn't, kill 10 frogs.  The argument is getting old.

In WOW's case you can just take off in any direction, knowing that a green mob is worth a litle, a yellow is worth a decent amount and a red is worth a lot, not caring what you "need to" kill.   There is NOTHING stopping you.  You just do whatever you want to do and you'll get rewarded approriately.  Of course the quests add to the rewards but thats EXACTLY what people were asking for all these years.  They wanted some purpose to all the grinding, even if its not meaingful purpose.  Just ANYTHING besides spawn camping.  They did it because they had no choice and it was getting tiresome.  Now you have a choice and some people STILL bitch and moan.  You're hopeless. 

Its all just whining for the sake of whining and its getting stupid.

What difference does it make?  If you don't want to do the quests then don't do them.  I know several people in these games that just grind different mob types because for whatever reason that's their cup of tea.

Personally, I like doing quests assuming the game actually tries to have an in depth story line.  Other times we just group up and go after mobs for the hell of it.  Why anyone would want less available in a game is beyond me.  Besides maybe core or primary quests in a game most others can be avoided if that's what you want to do.

Getting together and grinding mobs over and over again gets old. Some of the newer games actually try to have a story behind the game

Originally posted by Wickedjelly

What difference does it make?  If you don't want to do the quests then don't do them.  I know several people in these games that just grind different mob types because for whatever reason that's their cup of tea.

Personally, I like doing quests assuming the game actually tries to have an in depth story line.  Other times we just group up and go after mobs for the hell of it.  Why anyone would want less available in a game is beyond me.  Besides maybe core or primary quests in a game most others can be avoided if that's what you want to do.

Getting together and grinding mobs over and over again gets old. Some of the newer games actually try to have a story behind the game

It makes perfect sense, doesn't it?  Why some think you have less options when you in fact have more, is the confusing part.  And its not all that confusing=)

But no, newer MMOs don't really have camps where mobs just keep popping up in the same exact place where only a group can just sit there and pull, taunt, kil, pull, taunt, kill, forever, chatting away, since the battle consisted mostly of autoattack and pessing  1 or 2 buttons...while drool travels from their lip to the keyboard.   Other groups have thier  little spots as well, so you have groups spawn camping next to eacho ther.  Then some a$$munch comes along with 20 mobs on his tail, gurgling obsenities or giggling "TRAIN, TRAIN, Help me Help me!!!" and runs right through all these groups causing everyone to die, almost negating the last 2 hrs of  progress for a bunch of people.  No, that style of play isn't exactly viable anymore.  What a damn shame right?

Now when you grind mobs, you sort of travel around a bit...crazy I know... clearing out whole areas, moving around the zone alone or in a group.  Your choice.  Horrible isn't it?

I think the above 4 posts need to be read by everybody and sum up this whole thread in a slightly funny, sarcastic yet true way. Pay attention to thm, somehow between them they cover all there is to discuss and nail it to a T

God please make questing optional. Please make it possible for me to gain comparable items/xp without doing a single one. Amen. I love you OP.

People keep on saying "now you just have MORE choices," and while I have to agree to some extent, it isn't the entire picture. 

Yes, there are more choices.  Yes, you can choose to do whatever you want -- but the sponsored style of play by the game designers is clearly questing.  Quests make it easier to do everything, and in a game where the goal is to get to the highest level and do raids (WoW)  that means that most everyone is going to quest.  Yes, you will still be able to get a group sometimes and do things on your own.  But it severely lacks the community of games that force you to group -- or even just don't imply that you SHOULD be questing. 

I think the thing a lot of the people are saying they want is for grouping to be a more focal part in everything -- when you can gain levels faster or close to as fast by yourself than with 5 other people, something is definitely wrong.  If you are a casual player, it SHOULD take you longer to get to the highest levels, and one way to do that is by making solo content give less experience.  Yes, you can log in and do something worthwhile by yourself, but it will take a lot longer to get to level 60 than if you did things with groups.  And that's the way an MMO should be.

I think one of the problems lies in the fact that casual players want to be able to level just as fast as anyone else.  If you don't have the time to find a group and do stuff, you should still have a viable way to make quick exp.  The problem is that you have to do a lot less work to get exp, so EVERYONE starts gaining exp that way, because it is so much easier.  It's the path of least resistance. 

If a game makes it easier to level solo than in a group, or even equal, than most people are going to solo.  And it's a hell of a lot harder to find a group when everyone else is soloing.

Some of you just don't get it.  I don't know if it's because you started with WoW or something like it or if you played EQ and hated it (which is a perfectly valid opinion).  I don't know if it's some need you have to be told what to do and without that you feel lost.  But no matter how much you claim that a person can get the same sort of play in a quest grinder as in the older games it just isn't true.

Again I must stress that the old mob grinders were far from perfect.  I could give you a list of complaints I had with EQ.  But it was a different experience.  It was a different atmosphere.  And the design of a game does shape community behavior.

You can tell me over and over again that I can get the same gameplay experience in WoW, LoTRO, or some other quest grinder that I got in EQ and I know it isn't true because I've tried those games.

In a game like WoW, sure, I could go sit alone somewhere grinding mobs solo, knowing that even if I screw up it won't hurt me but what the hell fun is that?  I soloed in EQ if I felt like being alone or if I only had a little time to log in and kill a few things but I sure as hell wouldn't want to solo grind all the time.  Maybe that's why you guys love the solo play quest grinders.  Maybe you did play older games and spent all your time solo grinding the weakest things that gave you experience.  If you played a game like EQ in that way of course it would be boring as hell. 

So along comes WoW and gives you easy mobs, no death penalty, and wonder of wonders---NPCs who tell you what to do.  EQ wasn't rocket science but now you don't have to think at all and instead of dealing with other human beings now you get a sort of proxy human interaction by talking to NPCs.  But it's all much safer and nicer and they never tell you that you suck at playing your class, right?  Just do as they say, follow the little arrow on your minimap, kill the weak-ass helpless crap that culminates your awesome quest and the nice NPC will give you a pat on the back and tell you how great you are and prove it by dumping exp. and loot in your lap.

It's not the same thing, those games can't provide the same sort of experience, and no matter how often you repeat that they can it isn't going to make it true.  If you love quest grinders that's great for you and there is nothing wrong with that but don't try to say that they are the same thing plus a little more because they aren't. 

Originally posted by Neanderthal

It's not the same thing, those games can't provide the same sort of experience, and no matter how often you repeat that they can it isn't going to make it true.  If you love quest grinders that's great for you and there is nothing wrong with that but don't try to say that they are the same thing plus a little more because they aren't. 

I played EQ for years (starting from beta) and also UO from beta (hate that game, so grindy and pkfest).

You are right. WOW & LOTRO and similar games are different. They are VASTLY superior, for me, and many who got sick of single mob grind in EQ.

Oh, i grouped in EQ too. It does not add much to the mob grind.

And it is really not about making things DIFFICULT. It is about making things FUN. There are a lot of fun quests with little scripting events. Sure dailies are chores if you have to do them again and again but most quests are one-time only and that beats the monogamy of mob grinding 1000x.

In fact, even dailies beat single mob grinding since at least you get to look at different scenaries and kill different mobs.

Let me take a stab at this again..

The op hates games where all he does is grind quests. Apparently some of you feel the same way.

1. Your grinding. No matter what, you are grinding.

2. Standing in one spot is boring, you can try to convince me all you want that it isn't. It is. You will fall asleep at some point if you stay in one place, not moving for an extended period of time. If this is "fun" then, I'd hate to see what you do on vacation.

Ok, now that we have that out of the way. I personally have played every AAA title on the market, and made it to end game in almost all of them. That includes mUDS, UO, EQ, EQOA, EQ2, FFXI, WoW, AOC.. you name it.. I've conquered it. UO was fun because of the "players". not the content the game provided. Frankly if you go back and look.. what did UO consist of in terms of developer created content? If I remember correctly, there were limited amounts of quests, and most everything was player based. They just gave you a world to "live" and persist in. You could level skills, but that was it.. everything else was based on what the player "wanted" to do, not what the developers TOLD them to.

Bring in EQ... same basic premise.. except for this time we have an extreme level grind, and we've added a tiny bit of developer added content in quests and Raiding. You needed to group at a certain point to advance, and there was no real way around this.

Enter the modern day MMO.. WoW/Lotro.. etc. Weird, these seem to be similar to the mmos of old.. with one exception. They've added an option called "fun" to them. By removing all the annoying nuisances that plagued games of the past. So basically we've added more quests, more story, and taken away standing in one spot for 10 hrs. Sounds like a pretty good trade to me. So, the players who still like to just kill mobs.. can.. they just choose not to.. because much like in the past.. they feel "forced" to do everything and thus will only follow what the developers have spoon fed them.. instead of doing what a rational person would do and "think outside the box".

MMO companies doubled and probably tripled there player base by making these changes, as it made the games accessible to anyone and not just the mmo clique. I think deep inside the old school mmoers hate the fact that their sacred genre is no longer the underground geekfest it once was. Not only geeks play, but businessmen, woman, hot chicks, musicians, factory workers. You can still do all the same things you used to do in EQ.. you choose not to. Your the only one to blame for the decline of the "grind" mmo. Theres about half a zillion free korean grind games to play, with huge populations. Times change, and you either change with it or just stay ignorant and bitter forever.

I could log on to EQ right now and make up a quest log for every single 10 mobs I kill as I am grinding. Its the same thing, and always will be the same thing. If you want to have fun in ANY mmo.. its not up to the developers to do it for you.

The problem for me is uninteresting quests.  When I play a single-player RPG, the quests are usually interesting and very story-driven.  I feel like each quest advances the game's story or is at least somewhat compelling.  In MMORPGs, they go for quantity over quality, loading up the games up with hundreds of dull, repetitive, quests that feel like they're created from a template.  MMO quests are generally too short (kill 10 bears is not a quest, it's a menial task), too similar to each other, too numerous, too generic.

Another problem too is that quests are all text in MMOs.  If they voice-record all quests in an MMO (maybe a gargantuan undertaking, but that's mostly because there are too many quests) it would help bring the quests alive.  When I jump onto an MMO at 2am, I really don't want to read blocks of quest text.  Too often I find myself just reading the part that tells me what I have to do and then go off and do it.

I haven't read all 17 pages of the thread but what do you guys think about grinding other players for XP and gear? Now that's what I would call fun. :)

Originally posted by ENTR0PY

I haven't read all 17 pages of the thread but what do you guys think about grinding other players for XP and gear? Now that's what I would call fun. :)

me and some coworkers are in midst of designing an mmo, and this was one of the main features we had intending on adding. I think this is a far better reward than items..

Of course we'd have to implement a way to diminish the xp return after a few kills to discourage camping.

But yeah, WAR tried to do this.. but failed IMO.

PVP should be part of the PVE.. not a side attraction.

Originally posted by CayneJobb

The problem for me is uninteresting quests.  When I play a single-player RPG, the quests are usually interesting and very story-driven.  I feel like each quest advances the game's story or is at least somewhat compelling.  In MMORPGs, they go for quantity over quality, loading up the games up with hundreds of dull, repetitive, quests that feel like they're created from a template.  MMO quests are generally too short (kill 10 bears is not a quest, it's a menial task), too similar to each other, too numerous, too generic.

Another problem too is that quests are all text in MMOs.  If they voice-record all quests in an MMO (maybe a gargantuan undertaking, but that's mostly because there are too many quests) it would help bring the quests alive.  When I jump onto an MMO at 2am, I really don't want to read blocks of quest text.  Too often I find myself just reading the part that tells me what I have to do and then go off and do it.

I imagine you didn't play older MMOs, or else you wouldn't complain about uninteresting quests, because just getting something even semi-interesting was step up from nothing=)

You have a very valid point, but you just can't expect every quest to be great.    Think about how much time you spend on single player RPGs.  60 hrs average maybe less and think of all the filler in them?   You beat it in 2 weeks.  How much time do you spend in a MMO?  Months?  Years?   It takes years just to create a quality 60 hr single player game.   If after 3 yrs in development, a MMO only kept you busy for a couple of weeks, you've got some problems.  Its just not feasable.  Something has to give.  Thats where all the filler quests come in.  They fill in the time between the good ones.

Some MMOs do have lots of VO, but like you said, you can't record voice for every quest.  AOC does a decent job, but it doesn't last long.  So, you have less quests of better quality, but you're right back to the original problem.  Feasibility.  Expecting MMO developers to create 100s of hours of quality questing in the same amount of development time as a single player game that doesn't last nearly as long, is unrealistic and unfair.  Also, MMOs aren't single player games.  You can't be the hero that saves the world, because there are 15k other players on the server that want to do the same thing.  That kind of limits the possibilities if you want a persistent world.  As far as reading blocks of text, I assume you didn't play RPGs in the 90s.  There was very little to no voice at all besides cut scenes maybe=)  

quest grinding.... depends on how well its handled really.  There are 2 ways of progressing in an mmo... kill stuff, or do stuff for other people.  You can take the quests away but then you and everyone else in the game are nothing more than a bunch of homicidal maniacs because you don't even have a reason for going out and killing stuff.  The entire basis for mmos is somewhat flawed but I don't have any ideas for anything better.

Thankfully, the age of grinding is coming to a close. The traditional "gear and stats are everything, therefore we will hand out grind quests because they're cheap to make" is giving way to "fun is paramount, therefore we will give players the ability to create content for other players".

Second Life. City of Heroes/Villians Mission Architect. and More On The Way, I certainly hope :)

Originally posted by raystantz

1. Your grinding. No matter what, you are grinding.

2. Standing in one spot is boring, you can try to convince me all you want that it isn't. It is. You will fall asleep at some point if you stay in one place, not moving for an extended period of time. If this is "fun" then, I'd hate to see what you do on vacation.

There is truth to what you said and this entire topic puts me in an awkward position because I used to point that out as a flaw myself.  I guess my expectations for mmorpgs have declined to the point where I find myself arguing for the lesser of evils.

Look at the choices we are arguing between:

1.  Sit and camp static spawns with a group.  Maybe hoping for a rare spawn to pop so you can have a chance at good loot.

2.  Constantly running around doing trivial errands for NPCs by yourself.

I used to complain about the "sit and camp" style of play but that was before I saw what it would be replaced by.  Other people have said it already but what we really need is a third option.  Something that doesn't result in sitting in one spot but also doesn't have you constantly running to complete tasks.

Off the top of my head, just to try to offer some sort of idea;  Maybe have your starting area be like an island of safety in the midst of an incredibly dangerous wilderness.  Killing things close to home gives you crappy exp. and crappy loot.  The further you penetrate into the wilderness the rewards increase incrementally (not exponetially).  So there is always the temptation to push a little further to get a little better rewards but you wouldn't feel rushed to run, run, run as fast as you can (in fact that would probably be suicidal if the wilderness is dangerous enough).

If you die you respawn back at your home town.  If you are with a group and you take fatal injuries you don't die unless the entire group wipes.  If one person survives he/she can administer first aid to the fallen members to prevent them from dying.  So it encourages grouping but you wouldn't absolutely have to group.

Thinking about it, this idea would probably only work in a game with no levels if there is to be a controllable degree of danger in relation to the power of the players.  But anyway, the basic idea is---how far can you penetrate into the wilderness before you die.  So it gives you an incentive to move deeper and deeper into the wilderness but doesn't specify exactly where you must go to be rewarded.  The further you make it before dying the better the rewards and also the better the bragging rights (I once made it as far as _______). 

I don't know if I made the idea clear and I don't if it would work very well but I just thought I'd try to come up with something for a third option.

Originally posted by wootin

Thankfully, the age of grinding is coming to a close. The traditional "gear and stats are everything, therefore we will hand out grind quests because they're cheap to make" is giving way to "fun is paramount, therefore we will give players the ability to create content for other players".

Second Life. City of Heroes/Villians Mission Architect. and More On The Way, I certainly hope :)

LOL .. 99% of player created content is crap. I prefer professionally made quests to player stuff any time any day.

Originally posted by Neanderthal

Ok, I know I'm not the only one but are we vastly outnumbered by the people who do like it?

I tried WoW a few months back....quest grinding.  I just tried the Lotr trial....more quest grinding.

Alright, I don't get it, what is the fun in that?  You log into a game and are immediately told where to go and what to do.  It piles one quest on top of another so that you always have ten or fifteen stupid arse tasks you're supposed to do.  Go collect seven rat butts.  Go pick 10 daisies.  Talk to that guy then come back then go over there.  Hop on one foot while singing "I'm a little teapot" and smacking your own behind with a fly swatter then report back to me.

I can't take it.  I want freedom.  I don't want the damn game telling me what to do every step of the way.  I hate that crap.  I hate having 15 different little odd jobs demanding my attention and feeling like I really should do them even though I don't give a damn about any of it.  But that's how you get upgrades, class skills, the best experiece, and you never know if one of those idiot "quests" will lead to another "quest" that rewards you with something vital (like a class skill) so you feel like you might be missing something important if you don't do them.

Holy Christ, what the hell happened?  What happened to freedom?  What happened to just going out and finding things for yourself?  Do people really like being led by the nose through their games?  Is this really the future of mmorpgs?

And you know what else?  That quest grinding crap is like the final nail in the coffin of grouping.  Even though mobs in those games are so easy to kill that they practically fall over dead if you even look at them funny I still think people might group some just to speed things up if they weren't all running around spastically picking daisies and collecting rat butts.

The thing is; why would you bother trying to group with anyone when your chances of finding someone who is at the exact same spot in the sequence of quests as you are is practically nill.  Any given person is probablly either three quests ahead of you or at least three quests behind you.  You aren't going to wait for anyone to catch up to you and no one is going to wait for you to catch up to them.  And even if you did get into a group for a particular quest, as soon as it's over the other guy is going to want to go <that way> while you need to go <this way> so that's it, your group lasted all of five minutes and then your quests pulled you in different directions.  And everyone knows all of this so nobody bothers with grouping in the first place.

So everyone just runs around doing these stupid errands alone.  Never talking to another person (why would they?).  Never grouping.  Just playing connect the dots or paint by numbers or whatever analogy you prefer for this crap.  No exploration, no adventure, no social play, no fun...just...do as you're told and follow the dotted line through the game alone.

Dang, it's some pretty depressing sh...er, stuff.  If that's what people really want, to be errand boys taking orders from NPCs and being told what to do and where to go every step of the way, then I think my faith in humanity has just dropped significantly.

 

Asheron's Call doesn't tell u what to do. Its freedom..  Free-trial it.

Originally posted by Wickedjelly

What difference does it make?  If you don't want to do the quests then don't do them.  I know several people in these games that just grind different mob types because for whatever reason that's their cup of tea.

Personally, I like doing quests assuming the game actually tries to have an in depth story line.  Other times we just group up and go after mobs for the hell of it.  Why anyone would want less available in a game is beyond me.  Besides maybe core or primary quests in a game most others can be avoided if that's what you want to do.

Getting together and grinding mobs over and over again gets old. Some of the newer games actually try to have a story behind the game

It makes a huge difference.  Lets take WoW for example.  Both player A and player B play 20 hours a week... Player A does all the quests while player B just grinds on mobs.... Player A will hit max level way faster then player B.  

So if we do what you and some of the others are suggesting we are only going to gimp ourselfs.  Plus in games like WoW and WAR, quest give you items that you cannot get by just killing mobs.   So again your gimping yourself by not doing what the game is designed for.

WoW has less available options then EQ for a player.  If you are X level go to this zone in WoW and level till you get to X level then move to X zones.   At least in EQ1 you had several zones at each level to go play in.

Think of it this way.  WoW is like a train ride, the train follows the tracks to each station (quest hub).  EQ you could pick any number of zones to level up in depending on what you felt like killing that day.  Don't tell me other wise, I leveled up in many different zones at each level because I love exploring and see what "world" had to offer.

Group exp grinding is not perfect but it gave far more options then the solo quest grinding we see now in games. 

How can you even say that the new games give more options to the players is beyond me.

And unless you have friends playing with you, getting a group to go grind mobs with is impossiable in these new games because everyone knows that solo questing is the fastest way to level.

Originally posted by TdogSkal

It makes a huge difference.  Lets take WoW for example.  Both player A and player B play 20 hours a week... Player A does all the quests while player B just grinds on mobs.... Player A will hit max level way faster then player B.  

So if we do what you and some of the others are suggesting we are only going to gimp ourselfs.  Plus in games like WoW and WAR, quest give you items that you cannot get by just killing mobs.   So again your gimping yourself by not doing what the game is designed for.

....

Group exp grinding is not perfect but it gave far more options then the solo quest grinding we see now in games. 

How can you even say that the new games give more options to the players is beyond me.

And unless you have friends playing with you, getting a group to go grind mobs with is impossiable in these new games because everyone knows that solo questing is the fastest way to level.

If girinding mobs for XP is fun for you then I would think you would prefer WoW since you wuold spend longer doing it and as such have more fun.  In your situation if you went the quest route you would be gimping your fun since you would be hitting max level faster and then you would not be able to grind for xp anymore and would just be farming.  I do assume that you are playing MMOs for fun and not just to show off who has the bigger e-peen at max level.  As such the progression speed of other players should be completely irrelevant to you.

As far as your inability to find people who play like you, I really cannot help you there.  It's not like you would want the devs to force the players to play in ways that are not fun for them just so you would have people to group up with.  I mean other players are not content to be tweaked and melded to fit some vision.