i used to be boared to death by mob grinding. now i am bored to death with quest grinding.

i am wondering what will i be bored to death by next?

at least mob grinding was social. wow is such a lonely game until you start begging people for a spot in a raiding guild.

Seriously though it seems like everyone is severe ADD afflicted now though. if you take much longer that 5 - 10 minutes to get going you will already be losing players because there is literally NOTHING to do in the meantime. before you could keep 3,4 or 5 people happy and together "grinding mobs" or trying to crack a new zone/dungeon untill you got a party built that could do what you wanted, but now if it takes 10 minutes everyone is like "WTF I could have done 2 courier quests by now and got way more XP.... I'm out"

Originally posted by drDamage

Seriously though it seems like everyone is severe ADD afflicted now though. if you take much longer that 5 - 10 minutes to get going you will already be losing players because there is literally NOTHING to do in the meantime. before you could keep 3,4 or 5 people happy and together "grinding mobs" or trying to crack a new zone/dungeon untill you got a party built that could do what you wanted, but now if it takes 10 minutes everyone is like "WTF I could have done 2 courier quests by now and got way more XP.... I'm out"

I completely agree with this post.  In EQ I can remember exploring or visiting merchants or the bank while the group leaders tries to get a full group together.  Hell, sometimes if our healer left in an already established group, we'd just sit there for 20-30 minutes talking to each other while the leader tries to find a new healer.  We didn't mind.

Today if the healer or tank leaves the group the whole group collapses within minutes.

Also in UO it would take an hour or more to get everyone together that was going on a scheduled dungeon crawl, we all waited for everyone.  Today either half the group starts without the other half, or after 10 minutes they just say forget it and leave the group to go do their own thing.

It almost makes me cry.

Originally posted by Neanderthal
 

Everyone always says that WoW is so casual friendly but I think that's a little misleading.  It depends on what casual means to you.  WoW is defeninately solo friendly.  And it's stupidly easy.  And there is no death penalty.  And you can play in short increments.  But on the other hand the gameplay consists entirely of <RUN RUN RUN RUN, GET THINGS DONE, RUN RUN RUN, NO TIME TO STOP, NO TIME TO TALK, RUN RUN RUN, RUN BACK AND FORTH, RUN HERE AND THERE, RUN RUN RUN>.  

Of course any given individual could take it easy but the mentallity of the player base sets the tone and the game design shapes the mentality of the playerbase.  And in WoW and games like it the game design is RUN RUN RUN.  Hell, leveling up in EQ had a more casual feel to it than WoW because you just explored where your whims took you and when you were focusing on leveling you were basically just hanging out with some people camping spawns.  So I'm going to say, despite the flames which will come down on me for saying it, that leveling in EQ WAS more casual that leveling in WoW.  More casual in the sense that it was more relaxed and social and didn't feel so rushed.  Of course it took about a million times longer to reach max level in EQ but that would only be a negative to the....gasp...min/maxing power leveler.  The person who really is playing a game just for fun and not for Epeen wouldn't care if the leveling process took longer.

Thank you for this post!  You spelled out exactly how I've been feeling for a few years now, but I haven't been able to explain it to anybody nearly as well as you've explained it here.

Cheers

Just replying to the first post of OP:

Players don't want this, players want that ... ok which player?  You?  Me?  Him?  Her?  That guy?  The neigherbor?

They are identical in tastes, in aspirations, in everything?

Will you start saying, doctors don't want money, engineers don't like to eat bananas, and ultimately, you will say, all human beings love B Spear.

Great sweeping conclusions indeed.  You talked for all of us.  Thank you, maybe you pay for my game account as well.

Originally posted by Dameonk

Originally posted by drDamage

Seriously though it seems like everyone is severe ADD afflicted now though. if you take much longer that 5 - 10 minutes to get going you will already be losing players because there is literally NOTHING to do in the meantime. before you could keep 3,4 or 5 people happy and together "grinding mobs" or trying to crack a new zone/dungeon untill you got a party built that could do what you wanted, but now if it takes 10 minutes everyone is like "WTF I could have done 2 courier quests by now and got way more XP.... I'm out"

 

I completely agree with this post.  In EQ I can remember exploring or visiting merchants or the bank while the group leaders tries to get a full group together.  Hell, sometimes if our healer left in an already established group, we'd just sit there for 20-30 minutes talking to each other while the leader tries to find a new healer.  We didn't mind.

Today if the healer or tank leaves the group the whole group collapses within minutes.

Also in UO it would take an hour or more to get everyone together that was going on a scheduled dungeon crawl, we all waited for everyone.  Today either half the group starts without the other half, or after 10 minutes they just say forget it and leave the group to go do their own thing.

It almost makes me cry.

The key difference between EQ and WoW, is that it takes a lot of effort to get a group going, and an even greater effort to fight the way into a camp.  Once inside a camp, it is very hard to get out, no kidding.  IF you do not have a druid or wizard, only the casters can bail, the melees will have to fight the way out.

So if you have a group and you lose someone, you tend to wait for him to return, if you are deep inside a zone (not instanced).  You will not disband if you lose a member, you will leave him to sure death and painful corpse run if you bail, you wait, and you fight out or train out (and die on the way) if he does not come back.

Ok so we chat, not b/c I love you, but b/c we are in the same boat of deep sh*t.

On the other hand, EQ is such a small game that we know most of the guys at the "end game" level.  We tend to know each other somewhat, and so we talk more.  In WoW, we talk even more if its a guild or friend run, b/c the chat box and vent allows better communication.  Unfortunately given the huge population size, too many PUG members are new, and its hard just to warm up and talk all of a sudden when we stopped pulling due to whatever.

Originally posted by Orthedos

Just replying to the first post of OP:

Players don't want this, players want that ... ok which player?  You?  Me?  Him?  Her?  That guy?  The neigherbor?

They are identical in tastes, in aspirations, in everything?

Will you start saying, doctors don't want money, engineers don't like to eat bananas, and ultimately, you will say, all human beings love B Spear.

Great sweeping conclusions indeed.  You talked for all of us.  Thank you, maybe you pay for my game account as well.

I think if you read the OP it is clear that "players" means the majority of players in MMORPGs.

The statistics from teh quoted article should indicate that this is what is intended.

Maybe people love leveling up so much because when you level up, you get to make choices that have an impact.  To my mind, the essense of "grind" is that it is mechanical - you just do what you are supposed to do.

Maybe if the choice of quest, or the choice of which mobs to hunt, had more of an impact, it would feel less like a grind.

Originally posted by MudHekket

Maybe people love leveling up so much because when you level up, you get to make choices that have an impact.  To my mind, the essense of "grind" is that it is mechanical - you just do what you are supposed to do.

Maybe if the choice of quest, or the choice of which mobs to hunt, had more of an impact, it would feel less like a grind.

I think you hit the nail on the head. If you were working on a goal that was more than just getting some gear, or making another level, it would change the game dramatically.

Originally posted by SaetiaBelle

I don't like puzzle quests either, but I do like to know the storie behind why I'm killing 10 rats for some guy. Unfortunatly most of the time the npc will crit you with a wall of text and you won't even bother to read it. It's even more less read when there is more than 1 npc offering a quest. I found in Warhammer I would find a whole camp full of quests and just accept them all and then read them he way to the big red circle on the minimap. I hardly find that realistic RP wise as the npc has literally given me a note as if I am some errand girl. And if it is a riddle quest it usually only gets alt-tabbed. Even the quests that are 'answer these 3 questions correctly - with a list of 4 possible answers to click' I sometimes don't even read it, I just re-press the npc till I selected the right answer

The enter key is your friend and using funky colors doesn't make your post any better.

Mike Jefferson

...and also don't call what you have in World of Warcraft for quests because they are far from any "quest" that I have heard of.

They are more like underpayed errands for the halfwitted.

---

Originally posted by Orthedos
The key difference between EQ and WoW, is that it takes a lot of effort to get a group going, and an even greater effort to fight the way into a camp.  Once inside a camp, it is very hard to get out, no kidding.

---

Agreed. Good summary of an important distinction. EverQuest imposed commitment on the players while World of Warcraft lets players be as fickle as they care to be.

Something that you didn't touch on is that both games place great emphasis on personal goals. It develops an attitude of "I'm only grouping with people because it advances my personal goals." In EverQuest, I had to group if I wanted to pursue my goals, and once grouped I was really locked in. In World of Warcraft, I really don't have to group because I can pursue my goals solo. I don't need a group.

I wonder if the solution isn't to switch from personal goals to community goals. It develops a sense of "we're all in this together". Dark Age of Camelot did a bit of that with its realm versus realm stuff. Players there always viewed realm members as someone that they worked with. They might do nothing more than give them an update on what's happening, or they might group up for mutual defense or mutual attack.

Originally posted by Jefferson81

Originally posted by SaetiaBelle

I don't like puzzle quests either, but I do like to know the storie behind why I'm killing 10 rats for some guy. Unfortunatly most of the time the npc will crit you with a wall of text and you won't even bother to read it. It's even more less read when there is more than 1 npc offering a quest. I found in Warhammer I would find a whole camp full of quests and just accept them all and then read them he way to the big red circle on the minimap. I hardly find that realistic RP wise as the npc has literally given me a note as if I am some errand girl. And if it is a riddle quest it usually only gets alt-tabbed. Even the quests that are 'answer these 3 questions correctly - with a list of 4 possible answers to click' I sometimes don't even read it, I just re-press the npc till I selected the right answer

 

The enter key is your friend and using funky colors doesn't make your post any better.

 

Mike Jefferson

 

 

 

...and also don't call what you have in World of Warcraft for quests because they are far from any "quest" that I have heard of.

 

They are more like underpayed errands for the halfwitted.

 

That is the definition of a quest.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by Jefferson81

Originally posted by SaetiaBelle

I don't like puzzle quests either, but I do like to know the storie behind why I'm killing 10 rats for some guy. Unfortunatly most of the time the npc will crit you with a wall of text and you won't even bother to read it. It's even more less read when there is more than 1 npc offering a quest. I found in Warhammer I would find a whole camp full of quests and just accept them all and then read them he way to the big red circle on the minimap. I hardly find that realistic RP wise as the npc has literally given me a note as if I am some errand girl. And if it is a riddle quest it usually only gets alt-tabbed. Even the quests that are 'answer these 3 questions correctly - with a list of 4 possible answers to click' I sometimes don't even read it, I just re-press the npc till I selected the right answer

 

The enter key is your friend and using funky colors doesn't make your post any better.

 

Mike Jefferson

 

 

 

...and also don't call what you have in World of Warcraft for quests because they are far from any "quest" that I have heard of.

 

They are more like underpayed errands for the halfwitted.

 

 

That is the definition of a quest.

So when your significant other tells you to take out the garbage or to go to the store and buy some milk or some orange juice then you are on a quest?

Originally posted by Antarious

Then you move forward to WoW and eventually the add-on with the big arrows etc that tells you not only where all your quests are.. but the fastest order to do them.  I don't question people wanting to get somewhere fast... people take shortcuts all the time.  What I always found odd was... why go into this fantasy world .. when you don't want to know anything about it.

 

You don't get gamers, do you? It is not about knowing the world. It is not about the world at all. It is about power,  hack-n-slash (the use of that power). Pure and simple.

Why is Diablo so much more popular than other RPGs at the same? It is because it discard the unnecessarily elements (puzzle, stories and lore) and focus on what people want the most: kill things in neat ways and power up (level, items, skills, what-not).

All the addons, webites like wowhead, are designed to take the player to the FUN part as fast as possible. Surely one man's fun is another man's grind. However, given the popularity of games like WOW, Diablo, Dynasty Warrior ... many many players found that hack-n-slash is fun.

Originally posted by Jefferson81

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by Jefferson81

Originally posted by SaetiaBelle

I don't like puzzle quests either, but I do like to know the storie behind why I'm killing 10 rats for some guy. Unfortunatly most of the time the npc will crit you with a wall of text and you won't even bother to read it. It's even more less read when there is more than 1 npc offering a quest. I found in Warhammer I would find a whole camp full of quests and just accept them all and then read them he way to the big red circle on the minimap. I hardly find that realistic RP wise as the npc has literally given me a note as if I am some errand girl. And if it is a riddle quest it usually only gets alt-tabbed. Even the quests that are 'answer these 3 questions correctly - with a list of 4 possible answers to click' I sometimes don't even read it, I just re-press the npc till I selected the right answer

 

The enter key is your friend and using funky colors doesn't make your post any better.

 

Mike Jefferson

 

 

 

...and also don't call what you have in World of Warcraft for quests because they are far from any "quest" that I have heard of.

 

They are more like underpayed errands for the halfwitted.

 

 

That is the definition of a quest.

 

So when your significant other tells you to take out the garbage or to go to the store and buy some milk or some orange juice then you are on a quest?

 

If I"m going to get a reward for it, sure.

The Quest for teh Holy Orange Juice. I hope I don't end up at Castle Anthrax on the way back!

OK here is the thing, I loved Diablo and D2 I ran D2 servers at one time. I even lost a job once because I couldn't stop playing D2, but D2 is NOT an MMORPG for me. My definition of a MMORPG has "persistance" meaning the world will be there tomorrow and the next day and for the forseeable future.

Tradeskills were brought into EQ for "solo content" thats what you did solo, you didn't go to dungeons solo cause you WOULD get ass raped and likely train a bunch of people who WOULD remember YOUR name.

The problem as far as I am concerned is that in many of todays games the solo content is rewarded every bit as handsomely as the group content, this brings one of my most puzzling questions to the forefront... why, WHY pay 15 bucks a month to solo in a "Masive MULTIPLAYER Online Game"???

Originally posted by drDamage

OK here is the thing, I loved Diablo and D2 I ran D2 servers at one time. I even lost a job once because I couldn't stop playing D2, but D2 is NOT an MMORPG for me. My definition of a MMORPG has "persistance" meaning the world will be there tomorrow and the next day and for the forseeable future.

Tradeskills were brought into EQ for "solo content" thats what you did solo, you didn't go to dungeons solo cause you WOULD get ass raped and likely train a bunch of people who WOULD remember YOUR name.

The problem as far as I am concerned is that in many of todays games the solo content is rewarded every bit as handsomely as the group content, this brings one of my most puzzling questions to the forefront... why, WHY pay 15 bucks a month to solo in a "Masive MULTIPLAYER Online Game"???

It's all about the radeing really.

That and getting all that uber gear.

But...  yes of course I agree...   soloing in a online game is stupid but thats what the 4.5M westerners that plays WoW prefers to do.       

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by Wickedjelly

I actually disagree.  I like trying to figure out puzzles and I like a good story but generally most mmos stories do suck ass so they aren't worth the time.  Granted I probably am in the minority.

I would enjoy it more though if your actions actually had an effect on the world like you mention AND a good story behind it.  No doubt that would be much more interesting.

 

If it's actually going to matter, I will read a bad story. It actually has info I need to play the game. Naturally, I would prefer a good story, but if it's going to impact the game world, it changes my interest dramatically.

But I see it like this:

blah blah blah and kill ten rats.

Best story in the universe, written by JK Rowling herself, and kill ten rats.

Best story in the Universe written by a collaboration of RA Salvatore and his three favorite Hugo Award winning authors, and kill ten rats.

They are all the same for me, kill ten rats. I'll read the book by JK and RA, and just skip the story in the game and go kill the ten rats.

LOL so true. I probably have not read a quest since "quest driven MMO's" have started and seems like all we get these days. I played EQ for probably 4 years I only did 1 quest I think...I can tell you for sure I do not remember the story at all but it was turn in 10 giant heads for some really good shoulder pads and I was a lard arse ogre and I had to use a shrink potion to turn it in.

See even back then it was 10 rats! So to  the crowd who thinks Blizzard created everything in MMO's!!! they didn't even create 10 rats! They just copied it sorta into 80 levels of 10 rats!

haha plus the fact I had to make or buy a shrink potion even though I was a shaman and could shrink inside not outside would have detered alot of the newer MMO players because games are meant to be "fun" and not hard they probably would have skipped the quest all together...

Guess my rant got off topic but yeah I think it would be hard to impliment huge world changing story lines without it feeling instanced ...but it would be nice if someone could pull it off.

Untill then I will keep clicking quickly through the text to find out what 10 beast i need to kill so my level 12 charatcer can ding 13.

Originally posted by Josher

Originally posted by Neanderthal

Originally posted by Josher

You're not evil if you're a min maxer.  BUT, you put sever limitations on your enjoyment of a game and this is a perfect example.  You HAVE TO advance in the most efficient way possible.  Not doing so makes you feel inferior and insecure, at a disadvantage.  Doing quests is more effficient for the most part so you feel you're forced to do them even though they're optional.  FUN for you is advancing the fastest and you'll do something NOT fun to do it.  Thats YOUR problem.  Not the gane.

Please, don't compare current questing with soloing or grouping in EQ or DAOC. The rate of advancement isn't anywhere close to the disparity of early MMOs.  In EQ or DAOC, you almost couldn't advance at all without grouping up at some point.  In both WOW and WAR you can solo grind mobs and still advance quite quickly.  Group ginrding red mobs a few levels above you ALSO nets you a lot of EXP.    You're blowing things waaaaaaaaay out of proporation.  But you're a min/maxer and if you're leveling .00002% slower than other people, it probably ruins your day. 

 

I see you're still using the ol' double standard that you used in the thread I started about this Josher.  On the one hand you say that if grouping gives faster experience then that's the same as making grouping a requirement.  But on the other hand you say that if solo quest grinding gives faster experience then that's just giving people another option.  In your heart I think you know that that's a load of BS.

And I am going to compare questing with soloing and grouping in EQ.  Because in EQ you could solo to gain levels.  If you picked a class that was good at soloing it wasn't even that much slower than grouping.  In fact, for a few classes it might have been faster.

But ok, for the most part in EQ grouping was the fastest way to level.  So you say it was forced grouping.  And yet in games in which solo quest grinding is the fastest and most rewarding way to level up you say those are not forcing people to solo quest grind.  Well what's the difference?  It's two sides of the same coin.  Why is the most rewarding activity forced when YOU don't like it and not forced when YOU do like it.  Has it ever occured to you that you might be behaving just a little hypocritically?

I would actually say that grouping in EQ was less forced than solo quest grinding is in WoW.  Because, by definition, you don't need people to solo with you.  But you do need people if you want to group and if everyone else is running around doing solo quests you aren't going to have much luck putting a group together.  I'm not saying it would be impossible to put together a group in a quest grind game but the hassle and time it would take to do it each time you played simply wouldn't be worth it.

I was refering more to EQ's glory days where soloing was painful.  The game wasn't designed at all for soloing until years later and even then, EQ's version of soloing is picking a class that doesn't make it painful.   WOW was designed as a questing game, a solong game, a grouping game or a combination of all of them, from day 1.  Grouping ALWAYS rewarded you best.  You gimped yourself by avoiding them and if your friends in the game prefer to play alone then with you....well, thats your problem.

Getting a group in WOW if you have FRIENDS consists of logging in.  Then the guild sees you and they say, "HEY, whats up!  We're doing a dungeon or were over in zone X or we're doing battleground Y,  wanna come?"  Thats all it took for me.  I had a group in a minute.  It took longer to get to the group;)  If that wasn't your experience, your guild sucked.  Don't blame the game.  Blame yourself.  Playing with the intent to just level as quickly a possible, skipping anything that might slow you down, like CONTENT or in your words, "gimp" yourself, its no wonder.  EQ imprinted some bad, bad playstyle s onto some people.

You're not gimping yourself that much by avoiding quests, but then you're complaining about questing in a game designed around quests.  People LOVE them.  You don't.  Is that Blizzard's fault or YOURS?  Its you.  Its YOUR problem.  Min/maxing ruins games for people in my experience.  Everytime someone starts bitching about EXP per hour or thinks in that mode all the time, you've already ruined the game.  Anyway, good luck finding a new MMO to play.  You'll be searching for a very, very, very long time, because questing isn't going away.  The ability to solo effectively isn't going away either.  I guess you're screwed=)

I can see by your discussion that Blizzard is the only way! But wait what about the people that do not think the way you do and we are sick of quest and we do not think EQ gave us a bad playstyle! Thats cool you got your game WOW and several half baked clones to run around busting out rat quest and not socializing with anyone! The most interaction I have had with people in these WOW clone MMO's is the one jerk who can't wait his turn in line in these fed-ex quest...you know the guy that sees you fighting the mob in front of the quest item and runs in and takes it anyways because hell who cares he got his Quest on! and he will probably not ever see you again.

Its cool to have an awesome SUCK free guild thats on 24/7 to wait for you to log on so they can say come to one of these many awesome places for your grouping needs! But what about the wild cards or the people you will never meet who could be awesome players because you just blew by him because he isn't on the same quest chain or hell why bother meeting him you can solo 10 rats anyways.

I like I said did not cut my teeth on WOW I played EQ and DAOC and AO then yes WOW and the clones( yes you lotro and WAR)

and I can tell you I got caught up in the quest quest quest to end level...because basically I do feel the need to advance my character Im not a min/maxer but I probably play sorta like one...if I just wanted to socialize all the time Id go into a chat room.

But I can tell you the games will hold your attention only for so long but its the people and friends you make that keeps you playing a MMO for 3 plus years.Even the raid guilds I was in WOW seemed more like people put together than true MMO buddies. Becuase its quest till level cap then try to fill a spot in a raid guild you know if they need X,Y,Z class not because you where a cool dude they leveled with  back in the day at level 20 but because hey you feel a speicalized role they need....turn around was high in all my  WOW guilds because alot of people just got together for the gear not because of the friendships forged through grouping.

These are my opinions and Im sure you see them differently just letting you know that there is more than just your VIEW. Also to say quest games are here to stay and will NEVER ever go away is a very limited view.

actually i have to agree with the op i never read the quests in some games like warcraft because they are nonsence . in other game like conan they do have some story behind them but you cant read them in some areas because if you do you ll be ganked silly by the time your finnished reading what it has to say .i think the job route is another road to go down in mmos but why not offer both that and quests and puzzles rather than limit yourself . i quite like doing quests but i would really like to see some real progressive storylines in an mmo .