Shadarlog returns with a vengence

[Shadarlog]

(these are my personal veiws and thoughts to be comented on as you see fit, Woody feel free to delete this post if it is to thought provoking.)
Hewoo again all joo people not in oger land, I shadarlog de oger formaly of everquest. Off on my beta testing adventures through the land. Here to talk about some of the tings me seen on my journies. Me have this to say, what is up with these new games coming out. To name a few, some which are already out, We have RF online, Hero Online, and Legend of Ares online. These games are overly into grinding and have very little in the way of customization. RF forced pvp to the point it is uncomfortable, like chain mail wedgie, and a bit strained. Hero lacked customization on any real level with a character, and ares has far to many levels for anyone but a power gamer to enjoy.
The real point I am geting to is this, what exactly are game companies shooting for these days. With games like Tabula Rasa and Age of Conan on the horizon what are these games that lack customization and cling like a frozen corpse to grinding really hope to do? Every game out there is looking for a nitch but most games are well out dated these days. Grinding was something from the EQ days that WoW saw the end to for the most part thanks to it's countless quests. I guess this is more of a statement of why do people feel the need to make these games? Hero is a good concept but to be honest it would have come out better as a single player consoler with higher end graphics and a more indepth story. Ares, well the adverage gamer these days is casual spending what time they have playing to relax from work. A pvp game with 160 lvls will not draw the adverage casual gamer. RF had a nitch but the price of that nitch and the lvl requirment scares most casual gamers off, seeing as how the grind to get high enough to use a mech was about two months long on a casual play scale.
The other problem I keep seeing is the lack of variation in armor, to many games are geting into that these days, DDO feel into this problem as well. They just make so many skins and let it go from there. EQ, though it is old now, at least had a varitable smorgus bord of armor for evey level in the book. with look ranging all over the place. Now you get the normal one peice of armor per so many levels and it is all the same. Bringing me to the point of level restrictions, which is geting worse every day. Hero has one of the worse set ups for it I have seen, puting a level restriction on trading and even starting a guild. At what point do we admit things have gone to far?

[Zhul]

(These are my personal veiws and thoughts to be comented on as you see fit. Woody, feel free to delete this post if it is too thought provoking.)

Hewoo again all joo people not in oger land. I Shadarlog de Oger, formerly of EverQuest. Off on my beta testing adventures through the land, I am here to talk about some of the tings me seen on my journeys. Me have this to say. What is up with these new games coming out? To name a few (some which are already out) we have: RF Online, Hero Online, and Legend of Ares Online.

These games are overly into grinding and have very little in the way of customization. RF forced PvP to the point that it is uncomfortable, like a chain mail wedgie, and a bit strained. Hero lacked customization on any real level with a character, and Ares has far too many levels for anyone but a power gamer to enjoy. The real point I am getting to is this - what exactly are game companies shooting for these days?

With games like Tabula Rasa and Age of Conan on the horizon, what are these games (that lack customization and cling like a frozen corpse to grinding) really hoping to do? Every game out there is looking for a niche but most games are out-dated these days. Grinding was something from the EQ days that WoW saw the end of for the most part, thanks to it's countless quests. I guess this is more of a statement of why do people feel the need to make these games?

Hero is a good concept but to be honest it would have come out better as a single player consoler with higher end graphics and a more in-depth story. Ares, well the average gamer these days is casual - spending what time they have playing to relax from work. A PvP game with 160 levels will not draw the average casual gamer. RF had a niche, but the price of that niche and the level requirement scares most casual gamers off, seeing as how the grind to get high enough to use a mech was about two months long on a casual play scale.

The other problem I keep seeing is the lack of variation in armor. too many games are getting into that these days. DDO fell into this problem as well. They just make so many skins and let it go from there. EQ, though old now, at least had a veritable smorgasbord of armor for every level in the book, with look ranging all over the place. Now you get the normal one piece of armor per so many levels and it is all the same.

Bringing me to the point of level restrictions, which is getting worse every day. Hero has one of the worst set ups for it I have seen, putting a level restriction on trading and even starting a guild. At what point do we admit things have gone to far?
I'm very, very sorry... but I couldn't help myself. :rolleyes:

As for the message, you cover a lot. I'll try to address one gripe - grinding.

Grinding has certainly not seen its end with WoW. Once all those cool quests get you to 60th level, there is nothing left but to grind - whether it be for faction, PvP rank, or leet gear. However, there really is no way to remove the grind from the game. That's what a game is - a grind to a goal. You can put fancy bells and whistles on it to make the grind less painful (which WoW does succeed at for the most part) but it is still a grind.

Thus, the key is to find a game you enjoy where you don't mind the grind and stick with it. Once you do start to feel worn out, it is time to set the game aside and try something else. You can always come back to it after a break (assuming it hasn't gone out of business and shut down all its servers that is).

[Realmreaver]

Zuel "Grinding has certainly not seen its end with WoW. Once all those cool quests get you to 60th level, there is nothing left but to grind - whether it be for faction, PvP rank, or leet gear. However, there really is no way to remove the grind from the game. That's what a game is - a grind to a goal. You can put fancy bells and whistles on it to make the grind less painful (which WoW does succeed at for the most part) but it is still a grind."

As long as games make a grind almost feel like it's not a grind ala WoW I am all for it. PvP shouldn't be a Grind at all. Guiild Wars got PvP right while WoW's is an afterthought. Anyone seriously wanting pvp knows the field must be as balanced as possible and GW went with the concept to make it as much like FPS as they could. There is better and lesser gear but by end game everone got a decent set of gear to PvP with. This is unlike WoW where PvErs can outright butcher the PvPers... unless the PvPers goes and PvE grind out some armor.

WoW is great for PvE.. not PvP and at end game, what is a casual gonna do if they don't wish to give up their lives to raid out their existance? Right.. PvP.

[Wolf]

I thought the bad grammar was because he was an Ogre :p I could be wrong though.

I agree with everything but WoW can get pretty grindy at times.

[Telljer]

I'm very, very sorry... but I couldn't help myself. :rolleyes:

As for the message, you cover a lot. I'll try to address one gripe - grinding.

Grinding has certainly not seen its end with WoW. Once all those cool quests get you to 60th level, there is nothing left but to grind - whether it be for faction, PvP rank, or leet gear. However, there really is no way to remove the grind from the game. That's what a game is - a grind to a goal. You can put fancy bells and whistles on it to make the grind less painful (which WoW does succeed at for the most part) but it is still a grind.

Thus, the key is to find a game you enjoy where you don't mind the grind and stick with it. Once you do start to feel worn out, it is time to set the game aside and try something else. You can always come back to it after a break (assuming it hasn't gone out of business and shut down all its servers that is).


The nature of a pay-to-play MMO makes grinding integral to the process. There's always going to be content to encourage the players to continually subscribe. Finding the balance of grind/reward is where the game cannot please every single consumer. A lot of people want quick advancement and status. Some people, like me, want challenging content the whole way through the game, and to enjoy the process of their avatar's advancement.

The thing that irks me is when content is added which requires me to spend hours waiting for a raid to form and then hours more to complete just to unlock more content such as EQ's Planes of Power flagging process. Raids are fine as long as it's not forced and highly repetitive.

I often get the feeling that powergamer guilds are the highest concern of the developers of these games and I don't like that at all. Grinding through raid after raid because some uber guild can do it is the kind of grind I wish would go away.

[Darkov]

Those three are korean games, built around the grind. I think the first non-grind Korean MMO is going to be Archlord, which is the first real post-WoW MMO from Korea.

[9tails]

If there's one thing I wish I could implement an electric shock for the WoW devs over, it'd be faction grinds. Timbermaw, ZG, AQ20, Noz (AQ40), AD, BGs (three flavors)... OMG! STOP *zap* STOP! *zap* FOR THE LOVE OF ELUNE STOP! *ZAPsizzle*

The problem with grinding isn't 'grinding'. The problem is, from the dev's perspective, 'We can only make so much content, and players use content WAY faster than we can dream of making it. How do we maximally reuse content assets to give players enough to do?'. Grinding in the WoW-reputation fashion is the lowest-creativity example of how to solve that problem, but ways to solve it that are less grindy exist. However, the nature of the problem makes it very hard to give players enough to do without encouraging/requiring at least some content reuse.

[Woody]

Apparently "returning with vengence" doesn't have anything to do with "returning with an understanding of the forum structure".

And trust me, I don't need permission to delete a thread, let alone provocation to delete something. So, the idea that I would delete a thread for provoking thought is ignorant. Especially when said commentary involves your ideas on "grinding" which is an opt in situation. If you don't want to grind... then don't. Leaves less to whine about. And repeating armor is a product of the limitations on server technology in the face of potentially heavy traffic loads.

So, watch your "vengence" Shardarlog. Because, I assure you, mine is worse and seems to be based on a better understanding of the gaming world.

[Tristate0999]

Zhul...thank you for making that readable. Honestly I just skipped past his original message hoping someone had done that.

I'm afraid grinding is going to be a part of the MMOs for a long time, especially since WoW is so popular and is full of grinding. All the up and coming MMOs will see this as ok to put in their games, and the cycle will continue until someone else comes and designs something that allows content to stay fresh without adding craptasticly long grinds. Just my two cents.

[Zhul]

/derail ON
Zhul...thank you for making that readable. Honestly I just skipped past his original message hoping someone had done that.
I try to avoid being a SAGN (Spelling and Grammar Nazi) but sometimes I just can't stop myself.

In my opinion, people need to learn to communicate clearly if they want to be taken seriously in a discussion.

/derail OFF