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

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

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

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

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

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

If you want old-fashioned grind, give Darkfall a try.  It's real old school - you go out to gind base stats up by mining, and risk a fireball in the back from a PK :)  But it has extras, like ... warships, player cities, and magic.  Lots of magic. 

I played Darkfall and i really enjoyed it, though I'm giving Aion a try atm :)

Originally posted by Alle90

I played Darkfall and i really enjoyed it, though I'm giving Aion a try atm :)

Then you'll enjoy it aswell.

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

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

Ya always remember the good stuff.

Originally posted by SwampRob

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

 

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

 

Ya always remember the good stuff.

Its nice to have quests that get people to group, but a million solo quests for sake of exp is a yawn fest.

I don't know, maybe leveling itself is the real problem. I mean, grinding isn't that fun against AI. I think it has a bit to do with Rose Shaded Glasses, I remember DAoC fondly as well, but I will never want to grind that much again, then level my weapon. Done right quests aren't bad, but let's face it real quests are for single player or maybe co-op RPGs. In a MMO you pretty much always get a kill X grind disguised as a quest with maybe a bit of lore here and there. It's really the nature of the beast, who wants to come into a world where all the glory and challenges are completed prior to your creation? You're still grinding, it's just with some fluff thrown in and a time sink or two to polish it over. And I've killed enough spiders, rats, bears, boars, canines, felines, and assorted bugs to last me a lifetime. I should be banned from all Zoos, wild life parks and Noah's Ark. I mean, I'm some sort of animal serial killer.

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

"Grind" when used to describe repetitive gameplay is always bad.

"Grind" used to describe gameplay focused on just killing mobs isn't always bad, as long as it's varied enough to not be repetitive.  Most of the time it is though.

My 21 Sorc in Aion is to a point where I have very few quests and feel like one of my only options is to grind mobs.  I'm okay with that for a little, but there's such a small amount of variation in the keystrokes I press each combat that grinding has rapidly become repetitive and the thought of quitting has entered my mind (still want to stick it through to 25 at least.)  The small variation which does happen are spell resists, which force me to rely on cooldown abilities - this varies combat slightly and is enough to prevent me from having already quit.

What would make it better?  More variation.  If the mobs in an area were random.  If the mobs used abilities randomly that I could react to.  If I had an ability that I used after some proc triggered.  If I got an XP bonus for actively seeking out new mobs, or killing the same mob gradually reduced the XP you got from it.

So yeah, it all comes down to making the player feel like he's a valuable part of the equation.  Like he's not doing a task a robot could do and just repetitively hitting the same buttons in order.

grind isn't an issue.  When the community for the game's good and the game isn't pure solo content.  The old grind in DAOC/EQ/etc was fun because the community made it fun.  the games were a lot more relaxed and friendly than the epeen waving pissing contests full of asshats we have now.  People actually made friends in the old games, now if you don't know them IRL or are guilded with them for quite awhile.

In my first 2 months of EQ, Oasis of Marr, Highpass Hold, Kedge Keep, Sol A, the huge grinds, being happy about making 2 bubs of xp in a session.  But we liked it because it was not the "omgz go go go your gear sucks /disband" crapfest we have nowadays.  I remember my first instance on WoW, nobody talked, joked, said where they were pulling mobs from, anything, it was just run>tag>kill>run>tag>kill.  May as well just use AI scripts for PC's nowadays.

Grinding is not a problem if you feel that the reward is worth the effort.

Take daoc that you mention yourself, it took my first char 56 days of playtime (yes over 1300 hours) to reach max lvl yet you didn't feel like you wasted your time because there was a purpose with gaining levels, a reason for doing it, the realm war and you trained to become a fighter for your realm in the big war.

The problems start when improving your toon becomes a purpose in itself. Then the raising of abilities, skills and levels become _the_ purpose of the game and that means lvl'ing must be the focus of entertainment and that is when grinding becomes a bad thing because who want to grind and grind if it has no other purpose than getting to grind some more?

Originally posted by Addt4

Originally posted by SwampRob

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

 

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

 

Ya always remember the good stuff.

 

Its nice to have quests that get people to group, but a million solo quests for sake of exp is a yawn fest.

Nah .. solo quests >>>> mob grind. I will never go back to those horrible EQ mob grinding days.

Originally posted by afoaa

Grinding is not a problem if you feel that the reward is worth the effort.

Or you aren't paying attention to the grind because you are being entertained by the people you are grouping with. It is like going to the bar. Drinking home alone is boring. Drinking with people that are entertaining is good times.

I don't know about the grinding, but I do miss the groups that you would get and just sit on a cap for awhile for chat and suck between pulls.  BTW, what ever happened to pulling classes? 

I think part of the problem is that you can play most modern MMOs solo until you hit cap level. 

Maybe it is just that I am a content junkie, and modern MMO's seem to be designed around skipping a great deal of content because they add so much you will never be able to really do it all.

We don't "miss" the grind. At all. It is what we did because that's how the game was. We miss the depth ALONG with the grind. Which just may be because it was all new.

Don't tell me how it was though....

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

I miss the community. I miss the depth of the game world itself. I hated the grind. However, the grind may be what fostered the community but my opinion is that it was the slower paced combat of the games themselves. I didn't have much time in games like WoW to seriously talk to people outside of guild chat and zone chat while building groups. Once the groups were formed it was go go go because everything died so amazingly fast with a continuous stream of buttons to push to get the job done.

This oldschooler sure as hell doesn't miss grinding.  I can honestly say the only time I've enjoyed leveling in an MMO was in Warhammer doing it through pvp at a decent pace, which was probably the only good thing that game did well.  There's no reason for me to grind on "angry mushrooms" for 6 hours straight in the same spot.  No reason at all, I don't learn anything new, I'm not getting any type of story, I'm not being challenged, unless you count exercising my ability to not go insane out of boredom wondering what I'm doing with my life.  That type of grind is not fun, and never will be for me.

Originally posted by Alle90

EQ - meaningless quests (except epic quests) full of grinding, hell levels, and enough hardship back in the day to make you want to commit IRL.

Fixed. EQ, I love the game, always will - mostly back in the glory days - but EQ was not a game full of quests. You could play the whole game, without ever touching a quest. Whereas in WoW, questing is how you get most of your items/exp/etc.

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

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