y?

If you don't like to grind. MMORPG is not the genre for you. period.

Originally posted by Kyleran

Originally posted by Arezon

Originally posted by Cephus404

I hate them both.  I don't want to have to do the same repetitive nonsense over and over no matter what the carrot is.  If I can't stomach it, I stop playing and that's the problem with most games.  The trick to having a non-grindy grind is to have a massive number of different things to do so that every time you log on, your experience is different.  If you're just doing the same thing, going on the same quests, killing the same monsters over and over and over, why bother?

 

That's why WoW has conquered ALL. There's so much you can do in the game.

 

Yeah, you can kill level 10 boars, level 20 boars, level 30 boars, level 40 boars, etc.

Or you can run dungeons and instances 35-75 times to get your next level of gear.

Or you can fight in warsong gulch and capture the flag for the 4500th time.

Don't kid yourself, WOW has the same grind as any other game.

What you can't do is really affect the game world and control anything. 

Which is its single greatest failing.

One man's grind is another man's questing.  In EVE we grind for ISK, in a variety of ways to be sure, but in the end, its all a grind.  Just a matter of how you prefer it.

 

Remember, just playing a MMO isn't a grind.  Its only a grind, if it feels like a grind.  WOW"s gameplay is just more varied and enjoyable than other games.  Its not as tedious.  A lot of it has to do with the zone design, the character designs, smooth controls, the quest variety, the immersion.  There's a big, BIG difference in leveling up in WOW compared to old EQ, or DAOC, or even WAR and other newer MMOs that tried to copy the formula.  TRY is the important point.

Saying WOW's grind is like every other game indicates a gross lack of understanding of the myriad ways they vary gameplay.

WOW's variety isn't infinite.  It doesn't have to be.  It simply has to be more varied than other games.  And thus less grindy.

At least in WOW the grind requires you to be at the computer almost constantly.  It feels like 60% of my gameplay in EVE is spent traveling, where I could basically walk away from the computer (or more accurately I tend to spend the time browsing forums, videos, or playing H&H on the 2nd monitor.)

I dunno.  Despite EVE's combat seeming a little auto-attack heavy so far (possibly because I don't understand the intricacies; or because the intricacies are nonexistant in PVE combat) I do like the feel of the combat.  I just wish EVE would let me do that a lot, instead of trickling it out to me as 40% of my overall gameplay experience.

interesting replies on this thread but a point to be said is that fps games- when you exhaust pattern-forming in these are still fun despite being primarily the same content.

Originally posted by spades07

interesting replies on this thread but a point to be said is that fps games- when you exhaust pattern-forming in these are still fun despite being primarily the same content.

Well that's not exactly true.  FPS do get old at some point.

But the reason they stay interesting longer is that you never perfectly figure out the pattern.  At a very basic zoomed-out level, you figure out the pattern: shoot stuff, it dies.  Even at a more zoomed level, you figure out the pattern: they're fielding Heavies, so switch to Sniper and Headshot.  But the pattern you never quite figure out is the "move my mouse 1.5mm to the left to perfectly nail that headshot on the Heavy who's jumping around."   The precise details like that are important and because they matter (ie because you'll miss the shot without moving 1.5mm to the left) they are interesting.

These different levels of "pattern zoom" exist in every game.  Even in MMORPGs.  But probably the reason the detailed zoom feels less important is that in a competitive game it's "Kill or Be Killed" whereas in a MMORPG it's "Kill or Kill Slower."  And a majority of players don't mind (or possibly even notice) when they're killing slower...whereas players tend to notice when they're killed.

One solution (because "only make PVP MMORPGs" isn't reasonable) is to drastically improve the difficulty and reward scaling of MMORPGs.  Complete the dungeon in 30 minutes, get 200 gold.  Do it in 29 minutes, get 215 gold.  And so on - basically make it so each incremental improvement in player skill truly matters.  (of course solving this problem in isolation of the potential social ramifications probably isn't wise; plenty of elitism happens already in games, without making the best player rewards contingent on your entire group being skilled.)

Originally posted by Caleveira

Originally posted by zaxxon23

Probably because with b) you get phat lootz.  That being said I dislike b) even more than a).

 

THIS

You usually get to choose if you want to b) but not a), hows the survey going btw? Are you doing demographics as well?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA...LMAO at demographics

Originally posted by Quirhid

Isn't killing mobs for gold and loot called "farming"?

I move for a petition to change the term farming to ranching. Farming creatures doesn't sound right.

---

Originally posted by Axehilt

One solution (because "only make PVP MMORPGs" isn't reasonable) is to drastically improve the difficulty and reward scaling of MMORPGs.  Complete the dungeon in 30 minutes, get 200 gold.  Do it in 29 minutes, get 215 gold.  And so on - basically make it so each incremental improvement in player skill truly matters.  (of course solving this problem in isolation of the potential social ramifications probably isn't wise; plenty of elitism happens already in games, without making the best player rewards contingent on your entire group being skilled.)

---

I'm going to disagree on the pattern-forming thing with mmos- I think it is very valid, but it's not just that. I do like this idea of the skill-based approach to completing dungeons- that might be a nice addition to some mmos. I think it would be good for a mmo outside of WoW to think outside the box and adopt ideas like this.

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by spades07

interesting replies on this thread but a point to be said is that fps games- when you exhaust pattern-forming in these are still fun despite being primarily the same content.

 

Well that's not exactly true.  FPS do get old at some point.

But the reason they stay interesting longer is that you never perfectly figure out the pattern.  At a very basic zoomed-out level, you figure out the pattern: shoot stuff, it dies.  Even at a more zoomed level, you figure out the pattern: they're fielding Heavies, so switch to Sniper and Headshot.  But the pattern you never quite figure out is the "move my mouse 1.5mm to the left to perfectly nail that headshot on the Heavy who's jumping around."   The precise details like that are important and because they matter (ie because you'll miss the shot without moving 1.5mm to the left) they are interesting.

These different levels of "pattern zoom" exist in every game.  Even in MMORPGs.  But probably the reason the detailed zoom feels less important is that in a competitive game it's "Kill or Be Killed" whereas in a MMORPG it's "Kill or Kill Slower."  And a majority of players don't mind (or possibly even notice) when they're killing slower...whereas players tend to notice when they're killed.

One solution (because "only make PVP MMORPGs" isn't reasonable) is to drastically improve the difficulty and reward scaling of MMORPGs.  Complete the dungeon in 30 minutes, get 200 gold.  Do it in 29 minutes, get 215 gold.  And so on - basically make it so each incremental improvement in player skill truly matters.  (of course solving this problem in isolation of the potential social ramifications probably isn't wise; plenty of elitism happens already in games, without making the best player rewards contingent on your entire group being skilled.)

Yeah, it seems for some if you kill the same mob twice, its suddenly a grind.  Hard to reason with that kind of logic=)  Its the same logic that leads to comments like "WOW is just like EQ or Aion is just like WOW".  Yes, when you zoom out, they're similar, but when you zoom in and really examine all the different elements that form the MMO whole, the differences are much greater.

Well that was basically my point, spades07.  They are all patterns, but the dynamic patterns found in FPS games take longer to solve than the static patterns in MMORPGs.  Not all gameplay patterns are created equally, and some are much more interesting than others.

It's not that hard to add dynamic patterns to MMORPGs (the main difficulty lies in balancing it):

Fireball (soldier rocket) - target point on ground explodes after a delay.  This ability has a very long range, but the delay increases at longer range.  Targets closer to the explosion take more damage.

And that's just a blatant copy of one of TF2's dynamic mechanics (albeit one which is dynamic enough that you can design entire games around it.)  Given time, we could come up with dynamic MMORPG mechanics which are even better suited to that style of combat.

(update: Hmm, I realize I make it sound like FPS games are just better overall patterns.  But it's worht mentioning MMORPGs survive because of the sheer amount of stuff to do (the sheer number of patterns.)  So MMORPG combat not being particularly dynamic doesn't necessarily mean they're bad games.)

Originally posted by Axehilt

Well that was basically my point, spades07.  They are all patterns, but the dynamic patterns found in FPS games take longer to solve than the static patterns in MMORPGs.  Not all gameplay patterns are created equally, and some are much more interesting than others.

It's not that hard to add dynamic patterns to MMORPGs (the main difficulty lies in balancing it):

Fireball (soldier rocket) - target point on ground explodes after a delay.  This ability has a very long range, but the delay increases at longer range.  Targets closer to the explosion take more damage.

And that's just a blatant copy of one of TF2's dynamic mechanics (albeit one which is dynamic enough that you can design entire games around it.)  Given time, we could come up with dynamic MMORPG mechanics which are even better suited to that style of combat.

Hmm... anyone remember "Legends of Might and Magic"?

I vaguely remember playing it... it was sort of a "before its time" kinda game that wasn't supported too well. Was a love/hate relationship for me... but I regress.

The only thing I've realized to do over the years of gaming is to mix it up. When I was grinding my ass off in EQ1, I'd take a break and beat some ass in UT. When I got tired of Final Fantasy XI, I'd play a few hours of SoF2. Stretch your FPS muscles or stim your brain with some RTS/Turn Based games.

When I get sick of eating pizza, it doesn't matter what different toppings I throw on it, it's still a damned pizza... try something else for a bit and come back to it!