I don't understand them, and understand them at the same time.

If you've played any MMO's, you'll know that as soon as you get past the first few levels, MMO's start becoming an monstrosity of a grind.

And the thing is, they ALL do, NO EXCEPTIONS.

In Maplestory, it takes more then a year to get to level 200, which is simply ridiculous.

In most other games, it takes shorter, but not short ENOUGH, and the thing is, most people don't have an attention span good enough to grind for oh so long.

And that's the thing, GRINDING IS NOT FUN!
So why the hell do I have to do so much of it if I play any game with any RPG characteristics, and most importantly, in an MMO?
I'm not Korean, I can't grind for an entire day straight without exploding first.
And so that means I'll have to spend my entire fucking life leveling one character to the point that he's something to be scared of?

You see, Game devs do this on PURPOSE. They purposely add huge exp requirments so that they can make more money off of you wasting your time on subscriptions, and in the case of Maplestory, buying double exp cards from the Cash Shop.

You could say that they also want you to do the other stuff in the game, such as Party Quests or Fishing or whatever the fuck they put in the game that they want you to pay attention to, but in all honesty, WHY DO I NEED TO SPEND A FEW DAYS TO GO FROM 59 TO 60? I mean, usually the level outlives the content, and it's just ridiculous.

Why is there no such thing as an MMO that has a NORMAL progression system, like we see in most non-online games like Castle Crashers or Paper Mario, hell, even Final Fantasy has less grinding then the typical MMO!

I'd be even MORE happy to give you my $12 a month or whatever if you let me feel constantly rewarded, which JUST DOESN'T HAPPEN! Instead, you want me to lay you down $12 to play your little grinding sim? NO!

I play MMO's to explore a constantly changing and expanding world, but when I can't even reach half the shit that's constantly being added because I have a life, it just pisses me off!

Why the hell can't they decide to one day let us actually level easier?
How about add more levels but less exp requirments? Then at least I feel somewhat special and I get to see that little "level up" animation happen, be it litteral words or holy light or whatever.

It really wouldn't kill you.

I'm all for the guys at the top feeling all powerful because they're at a level that not many else reach, but that can still happen without the only reason them being all powerfull is that they wasted a year of their life grinding.

How about some brutally difficult boss that gives you some awesome gear instead?
If find that would actually take SKILL.
And that's the other thing, just because you're top level, doesn't mean you have SKILL it means you have an attention span! How much goddamn skill does it take to hotkey some attacks/spells/whatever and spam them at random monsters?

Gah, whatever, but seriously, MMO guys, how about you evolve already?

At 4/11/10 09:54 PM, squidly wrote: big huge Rant

Yeah, but thats how they make money is off the people with no life who play all day. and i have only seen one MMORPG where you dont have to grind TOO MUCH because of the amounts of quests you can take, and the grinding isnt really that bad. its pretty fun, because its like an old-school beat-em-up tied with an RPG. But even though i enjoy the game i cant ever play it more than like a half hour to an hour at a time. not once have i used all of my fatigue in the game (once your out you have to wait until the next day to play again, unless you do PvP combat, which takes no fatigue)

EVE Online

MMOs take a unique approach to gameplay by rewarding players for time played rather than skill acquired. In most games, how well you perform is completely separate to how much time you've spent playing. While there usually is some correlation, they are still separate entities. For example, one person may completely master every combo and strategy in Street Fighter in a day, and another person may take a whole year to accomplish the same task. This game clearly rewards players based on how well they learn: not how long they play.

And this is exactly why I don't like MMOs. The approach they take is essentially the exact opposite. Rather than rewarding the players who master the game's mechanics, they reward those who have invested the most time into them. It doesn't matter how many strategies I know or how well I can maneuver if you're 40 levels higher than me. Likewise, even if we are both "capped" (that is, both at max level), the difference in our "gear" (the stat increasing items your character wears and earns) will most likely be completely disproportionate. This is an absolutely horrible way to design any game!

Imagine if in Halo 3 your opponents had more health than you because they played longer. Imagine if in SFIV your Chun Li couldn't perform certain moves because you hadn't grinded her to level 50 yet. Imagine if in MW2 you had to grind XP in order to use certain weapons online - oh wait, I guess that one's true. Rewarding players based on how long they've played their games is ridiculous, and the fact that so many people play games that are based around such a philosophy is ridiculous. When I buy a game, I should be on equal footing with my opponent in terms of what options we both have available. If he beats me, it should be because he knows more about the game, not because he's unlocked some extra that I won't have access for until I put in 20hrs or so.

Speaking of unlockable stuff being bad game design, SFIV was no exception. Unlocking all the characters in that game took hours, and if you wanted all the colors and taunts, it took even longer. Luckily they're getting rid of that in SSFIV by having all the characters unlocked at the start (colors and taunts will need to be unlocked still, but they don't affect gameplay so it doesn't matter).

TOR is apparently not suppose to have any grinding when it comes out, which will be good.
Bioware usually fulfills most of the promises they do so I'm guessing it'll be a pretty likeable game.

At 4/11/10 10:55 PM, Sinitron wrote: EVE Online

Mining, and mining bots are a bitch,

Doesn't it seem a little odd to you that literally every single game in this genre shares what seems like a pretty glaring design flaw? It's because it's not a flaw at all. It's the core design philosophy that keeps the genre so successful.

At 4/11/10 09:54 PM, squidly wrote:

In most other games, it takes shorter, but not short ENOUGH, and the thing is, most people don't have an attention span good enough to grind for oh so long.

Attention span is pretty much irrelevant; once you're in, you're in, and your rational brain pretty much shuts off. Why do you think these games have such bombastic, unsubtle level-up animations that make every extra number into a huge celebration? It works the dumbest (and most vulnerable) parts of our brains into thinking "level-up good," a thought that can eventually come to override any rational objection.

This is also why level-ups start easy and take gradually longer as you go on. They want to hammer that sense of reward into you as soon as possible, so that even when you logically know you're nowhere near leveling up, you ignore logic because the Pavlovian response mechanism the game put into you (grinding = immediate reward) makes a part of you think you're just a little bit further from the next level.

And that's the thing, GRINDING IS NOT FUN!
So why the hell do I have to do so much of it if I play any game with any RPG characteristics, and most importantly, in an MMO?

Because grinding is pretty much the only gameplay there is in MMOs. It doesn't need to be fun as long as it's easy to do and keeps dangling a carrot in front of your face.

You see, Game devs do this on PURPOSE. They purposely add huge exp requirments so that they can make more money off of you wasting your time on subscriptions, and in the case of Maplestory, buying double exp cards from the Cash Shop.

That's a Bingo.

You could say that they also want you to do the other stuff in the game, such as Party Quests or Fishing or whatever the fuck they put in the game that they want you to pay attention to, but in all honesty, WHY DO I NEED TO SPEND A FEW DAYS TO GO FROM 59 TO 60? I mean, usually the level outlives the content, and it's just ridiculous.

The longer you can stretch the time between levels, the less actual content you have to make. I mean, I would have nothing but admiration for the sheer genius of these MMO designers if it wasn't so blatantly evil.

It really wouldn't kill you.

It would, though, because this is the foundation of their whole economic model. I wish things didn't have to be this way, because there really is so much great emergent gameplay potential for having massive amounts of players in one big, persistent environment, but unfortunately it's always going to be much easier and more profitable to create the same old grindfest.

I'm all for the guys at the top feeling all powerful because they're at a level that not many else reach, but that can still happen without the only reason them being all powerfull is that they wasted a year of their life grinding.
If find that would actually take SKILL.
And that's the other thing, just because you're top level, doesn't mean you have SKILL it means you have an attention span! How much goddamn skill does it take to hotkey some attacks/spells/whatever and spam them at random monsters?

But it does have to be this way. That's more of the MMO designers' evil genius at work. Anyone can feel like a badass as long as they keep putting in time (and therefore money). If these games actually required skill, that would break the perfect system because there would be haves and have-nots; the have-nots would get discouraged and quit before they've sunk in bucketloads of money, and the haves would be able to achieve everything they wanted to in the game without having to pay similar bucketloads of money first.

At 4/12/10 01:55 AM, JingoJoe14 wrote: Imagine if in MW2 you had to grind XP in order to use certain weapons online - oh wait, I guess that one's true.

There's a balance, though, that I think actually works quite well in Modern Warfare 2. The bullets don't discriminate. I think I'm like a level 28 or 29 now and I routinely score more kills per game than most of my max-level teammates and opponents. The game rewards both time and skill, which might not be such a bad thing because it levels the playing field and makes things more all-inclusive. Players who might not be all that good at shooters can put in time to level up and gain an edge that way, while players with skills in these types of games can play well without that.

At 4/12/10 05:13 AM, letiger wrote:

At 4/11/10 10:55 PM, Sinitron wrote: EVE Online

Mining, and mining bots are a bitch,

Mining sucks shit and is boring like no tomorrow, but it would be YOUR decision to mine instead of missioning/ratting/stealing/scamming/tra ding/pirating for money, it's not something the game forces on you.

Also, it has no level grind, which seems to have been the point of the thread. Sure, it takes a couple months to fly advanced tech 2 hulls, or years to fly capitals, but these require actual piloting experience to utilize and an understanding of game mechanics, so they aren't really an option for a newbie anyway.

This is exactly why I don't bother with MMOs. Once you reach the highest level possible, well, whoop-de-fucking-do.

At 4/12/10 05:54 AM, Sinitron wrote:

At 4/12/10 05:13 AM, letiger wrote:

At 4/11/10 10:55 PM, Sinitron wrote: EVE Online

Mining, and mining bots are a bitch,

Mining sucks shit and is boring like no tomorrow, but it would be YOUR decision to mine instead of missioning/ratting/stealing/scamming/tra ding/pirating for money, it's not something the game forces on you.

Also, it has no level grind, which seems to have been the point of the thread. Sure, it takes a couple months to fly advanced tech 2 hulls, or years to fly capitals, but these require actual piloting experience to utilize and an understanding of game mechanics, so they aren't really an option for a newbie anyway.

Well I was talking about the general thing. As for me, my ship ususally sucks shit. I just started, took a job in a .8 system, and got blown the hell up. And atleast they were kind enough to give us a browser in-game.

At 4/11/10 09:54 PM, squidly wrote: Game dev's want your money.

Thanks, captain obvious. If you don't like it, don't play it.

At 4/12/10 06:16 AM, DontExplain wrote:

At 4/11/10 09:54 PM, squidly wrote: Game dev's want your money.

Thanks, captain obvious. If you don't like it, don't play it.

And as for semi-good free games, you have to pay for it to be really good.

sounds like its because you play browser type mmos, runescape etc lol, tbh iv never really played many MMOs just the 1, which is LOTRO (lord of the rings online) i find it great, its also aimed at casual games, you dont even grind unless you doing traits, which even then most can be completed just by doing quests, theres more than enough quests to hit the max level, theres whole areas you can miss out where theres quests and still get to the highest level else where, then when your done you can do PVP so it doesnt get boring. or raid, or craft, w.e you want

At 4/11/10 09:54 PM, squidly wrote: And the thing is, they ALL do, NO EXCEPTIONS.

, GRINDING IS NOT FUN!
I'm not Korean, I can't grind for an entire day straight without exploding first.
You see, Game devs do this on PURPOSE.

Hurr durr, that's kinda obvious...
All grindy games are like that because devs want you to play more, which means pay more.
That's why I stay the fuck away from any kind of MMO's that are either completely free (they suck) or require a monthly pay (they suck even more).

You know, you pretty much answered your own question. And just about any game puts in artificial grinding just to increase game length, although MMOs are obviously the most vicious when it comes to that.

You also have to understand that there's an entire market who plays games like WoW who never reach max level. And the amount of people who play like this is probably a lot bigger than you'd think. There's a chance these type of players would quit upon reaching max level, because their sole purpose of playing is just to grind through the game, they have no interest in end-game content, and probably don't even know much about it.

My girlfriend's sister is one of these people. I used to play WoW, and when I found out she did I thought that was interesting, so I'd spark up conversations with her. I come to find out her highest level was something like 40ish, and she'd been playing for, I think about a year. She was also hardcore into the game, she really loved it, she just didn't play it the same way I did. I couldn't talk to her about end game raids and PVPing with my level 80, she just didn't know about that type of content, and I don't think she'll ever experience it. She's content playing it almost like a single player game, just going through the process of gaining levels and advancing into new areas.

Anyways, as I said earlier, you already know the answer to your own question. What your question should be is: Why do I still play MMOs if one of the main core concepts of them take away my ability to enjoy the game? But, I think you know the answer to that question too... You enjoy the reward of progression and leveling up as much as anyone else, and it hooks you in pretty hard.

Btw, Castle Crashers was pretty grind worthy too. You had to spend a decent chunk grinding out levels to be able to play on the max difficulty.

Playing an MMO like a single-player game is retarded.

Then again, most MMOs are retarded as well.

At 4/12/10 01:55 AM, JingoJoe14 wrote: Perception into mmos.

Wow, that was probably the best read I've seen on NG all day. Good stuff.

What I was trying to say is, why don't we have a skill based MMO?
An MMO not based on how much you can grind, but how much skill you can put into your grinding.

I played 'till lvl 60 in WoW, got banned for ever. Now I can't go higher than lvl 10 before getting bored... Oh yeah and I remember that game, I think it was Archlord or something. The only fast way to lvl is GRINDING, lot of fucking grinding. Like you need to use a trick to get like 30 enemy around you at same time, and spam AoE spell...

Never played egain.

At 4/12/10 03:22 PM, squidly wrote: What I was trying to say is, why don't we have a skill based MMO?
An MMO not based on how much you can grind, but how much skill you can put into your grinding.

hey fck you i already linked eve online

At 4/12/10 07:17 PM, Sinitron wrote:

At 4/12/10 03:22 PM, squidly wrote: What I was trying to say is, why don't we have a skill based MMO?
An MMO not based on how much you can grind, but how much skill you can put into your grinding.

hey fck you i already linked eve online

That's exactly what I was thinking.

At 4/12/10 07:17 PM, Sinitron wrote:

At 4/12/10 03:22 PM, squidly wrote: What I was trying to say is, why don't we have a skill based MMO?
An MMO not based on how much you can grind, but how much skill you can put into your grinding.

hey fck you i already linked eve online

Ok, that's one, but by the looks of it, absolutely nobody decided to take a smart page out of their books yet.

A what out of our what?

At 4/12/10 07:22 PM, The777Demon wrote: Is there an mmo where you get stronger for doing crtain task as opposed to the same thging in order to gain levels. With a medieval setting.

Runescape is as close as it gets. Can do certain stuff with levels, but you need to unlock stuff with quests, and there's A LOT of quests.

Leveling up everything is only needed when you want auto-sufficiency and Gold.

Yes, but none of us will ever turn to THAT side.

it's really good for like an hour at best, unless it's a quest, which is sorta fun.

At 4/12/10 08:06 PM, Maverick-Alex wrote: it's really good for like an hour at best, unless it's a quest, which is sorta fun.

Oh really? Well I tried it once, it sucked so I never played it again.

Like I said, as close as it gets. There's still some awful grinding in certain stuff, which requires raw material and patience, it usually pays up in Gold (or so I heard), Lobsters fetch a good penny, but requires both Fishing and Cooking, unless you don't mind paying for raw ones.

Getting your stuff processed (i.e fire range, smelt furnace, anvil) it's quite a pain, since stuff that is not ammo (i.e darts, arrows, knives) don't stack, and you gotta make trips to the bank.

Haven't played for a while, but it was somewhat good.

As for the player interactions, I usually avoid it, and only when it's needed. "parties" in the Wild backstab you, "clients" cancels orders, friends will drop you if you don't comply their every whim.

Really good companions are rare.

Grinding is fun to some people and not to others. Generally all MMOs are based around grinding and farming both when leveling and at top level so if you dont like that sort of thing then they aren't for you.