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What ever happend to camping for xp?
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If you want to convince yourself that following an npcs general instructions is not harder than spam clicking through dialogues just to get a marker to pop up on your GPS, thats fine, but you won't convince us of that.
Its not just about the ability to read or follow directions, its about how infantile the content is designed now. In older games they didn't give you exact directions, they gave you very general directions like "to the north" or "near the home of the frog people" where that home of the frog people could mean anywhere in two connected dungeons that takes hours to find.
Sure, you can find out where it is by asking or reading a website, but it was not only harder to find, but harder to accomplish the task and required more than just following GPS by yourself. It required you to interact with others for both the information, and to accomplish your goal. Pretend its better now all you want, but again, you aren't convincing anyone else.
Sure it was much harder. Whatever makes you sleep at night.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
3. Diversity is only somewhat dependent on implementation. With camping there's not a lot of room to implement diversity; you're only going to have mob-killing as an activity, so any diversity that exists is very constrained to the types of encounters which exist. With quests you can implement them very poorly (like doing only kill-quests, which is barely any different from camping) or you can do them well (lots of diversity.) Naturally better mob diversity helps either method, but one method is constrained to camping/killing while the other offers diverse activities and the sky's the limit in terms of the quality of the interesting challenges each quest activity can provide.
5. Once you start killing mobs, it's an eternal mindless grind. But with each quest you have to figure out what new thing you have to do to complete the quest, and that's some thinking. It's more thinking than "just keep killing". Certainly if we delve into the specific ~10 early MMORPGs I played, the mob killing in those games involved far fewer meaningful decisions than the questing did in WOW. Now sure you can bring up badly-done questing games like WAR where the quests and mob content were very weak, so like we covered in #3 it is dependent on implementation, but I've never experienced a game with good camp-based gameplay.
The things I'm claiming are facts are facts. I'm very careful about only claiming that about things which are facts.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
As I mentioned before you can have grinding in game that is not mob killing related. This equates to the different things quests sometimes give you to do, but often are far more involved in their mechanics. For instance gathering ore and crafting were grinding activities in Ultima Online. Two of many different possible grind activities you could do. In SWG you could farm which was different kind of grind. It was also more involved then anything you will see in a quest.
It's very true. It's amazing how many people are unable to follow instructions. I know I still have some difficulty in games without a GPS to guide me around. I find that it is a lot more enjoyable to have to figure things out for myself though. Even if it means I might miss something.
I find the same thing with computers. I often force myself down the difficult path like using the command line to accomplish things I could have done easily with a GUI. I do it just to make my mind work harder and try to learn something I wouldn't have otherwise known.
I'm sure the subject was mob grinding for xp vs quest grinding for xp isnt it? What does other grinds have to do with the subject? Also, everything you just listed these quest grind games also have an abundance of.
It's better to waste time grinding quests, then?
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
If you're criticizing X and suggesting Y is better, you can't use features of X to prove why Y is better. You need to find things exclusive to Y. That means things which are only found in Y.
You seem to be attempting to list features of WOW (and nearly every quest-based game) as reasons camp-based games are better than quest-based games. Those things exist in quest-based games!
Do you need to see it visually?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It's not grinding if there's a story involved, or if there's actual objectives and tasks to complete. At least with quests you are being immersed into a story with NPC's and plots.
Repeatedly killing mobs for hours on end for an uptick on a bar is less thrilling, and not immersive.
I find it amusing that pre-WoW oldtimers somehow think camping automatically means socialization.
I guess voice chat, zone/global chat channels, and guild chat are lesser forms of socializing, according to these people.
I once read an article over 8 years ago on voice chat and MMO's, and some forum posters were claiming that voice chat will kill MMO's because it was immersion breaking. lol.
It's actually pretty sad that people have a desire, and a want, to socialize for endless hours, in a camping/grinding spot.
Voice chat was pretty terrible. Going from text to having to listen to people with high pitched voices and swearing all the time was not a good upgrade IMO. I much preferred text chat. People actually talked about the game amazingly.
I give up as it seems it does have more variety.
I will say that that variety is pretty horrible content that I wouldn't want to play through. It sounds like some really terrible mini games.
I could probably live with the quests if there was no GPS and the difficulty level was a lot greater then it is.
I play a lot of modern single player games that have a lot less artificial progression and also far more immersing story.
I do feel that while grinding may not have as much variety the old games still offered more to do through forced interaction. There were many things outside of combat that people were forced to rely on each other for.
I dont know about you but when I'm on voice chat with friends or others we talk about the game all the time. You hanging out with the wrong peeps yo.
What gets me is that people prefer to not be social, and to avoid having to talk to other players in an MMO of all things.
I myself, I don't really socialise in games of today.. there is just no point or need to for the most part.
In past games? camping didn't just give you the chance to spend more then a single quest/instance together. It rewarded you for doing so, you would see the same players time and time again while playing. They became friends, or enemies but either way that added to the social aspect of the game.
I know having friends to play with gives me the motivation to login and not to get bored of the game once I hit cap like I tend to now days, but that's a thing of the past and I don't think will be seen again for some time yet if ever within this genre.
What the fuck is the difference between dungeons staying where they are, instanced, and bringing them to the open world?
The only thing you bring is ruin. There are WAY to many players for open world dungeons to work as they once did. What is the difference if you just got the party you WOULD have already had to get to do them if they were open world, and then just do the fucking dungeons instanced? Seriously explain it to me because i don't understand.
First, engrish.
No, there is an easy way for open world dungeons to work in mmorpgs. First, deciding what the maximum capacity of your server is based on the available content. A server can generally only have a few thousand players on it, tops. Not necessarily because of hardware limitations, but because of the size of the world and available content. Its just a matter of making a world and dungeons that can support more players. You may not be aware, but dungeons in games before WoW could host as many as 10 groups of players at once.
Modern games simply have a lack of dungeons and an overwhelmingly linear path of progression through their game world. If you offer content of various levels in every direction, and create more and larger dungeons, there is no need for instancing.
Alas, this is not even the real problem. The real problem is that people want their dungeons with the convenience of a fast food restaurant. They don't want any waiting, even if it detracts from the quality of what they're getting. Many people value that convenience and interacting with their User Interface over an open world and actually having to interact with people to progress in the game.
To each his own, but lets not pretend what we have today is in any way better or that a truly open world isn't possible because thats just wrong.
Stopped reading at engrish. Just thought you should know. Figured it was fair since you definitely didn't bother reading my post either.
Thats fine. Just suggesting that you proof read what you write so people can better understand it. I try to make it a point not to complain about that sort of thing, but I had to reread your post like 5 times to feel confident I even understood what you were trying to communicate.
Lucky for me, this was a post on a forum and not a private message, so others will still get the benefit of reading it.
Instancing came to be to ensure the mechanics of an encounter played as intended, this was one of the biggest issues in open dungeons, environments that were meant to be dark and foreboding often turned into what looked like a hub of tourism. The silly naked guy running around or an army of them, the lack of enemies to fight because everything is constantly dead, the large group taking everyone's kills... etc..
You're also forgetting that scope for a game can only be so wide. Creating the size of world you're talking about is a monumental task, when you also have to flesh it out with mechanics as well as content. As well as offer a robust class/skill system, etc.etc.etc...So you have to think whether what you're saying would fit into any studios scope for a game...When considering modern development practices as well as general expectation of production value.
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What many want is to experience the content, not watch it being robbed from them by mechanics that have long since been fixed... What you said is not an accurate representation of what many players want, as well as it shows a failure to see that what you view as "quality" is not universal.
I view any system that allows others to ruin your experience or screw up intended mechanics as bad design, and no where near quality. As did many in the past, that's why it was done away with..
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Yet running the same, scripted dungeon 1000000 times to get a single gear piece is not boring?
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
Right, and the rest of those things are simply subjective preferences I can't disagree with and that's completely fine.
It's also fine to subjectively dislike the ease of the questing in most games (which I completely agree with.) Just as long as we don't try to claim that they're easy because they're quest-based (since quests can certainly be balanced to be difficult; City of Heroes is a good example.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Except that those "rational reasons" only diss camping as if it was the only thing to do in a game... The replies to those posts were made using the same logic on the current WoWinspired themepark model, where one could say (using the same logic..) that all you do in these games is solo grind quest from 1 to cap, and once there, surprise, go grind some more in the form of daily quests...That sure sounds boring right? But that's not taking into consideration everything else that the game offers. People are not asking for games to have only mob camping, they want this way of playing to be back in the games. Have the devs think about it while designing the game and the zones and add this kind of possibility back in by making it challenging and rewarding. Make it so that grouping does not feel like a handicap or something you have to endure for a bit, so you can go back to your solo adventures, that are way more beneficial to your progression and your fun. Some people are saying that you can still camp mobs in most games, and you theoretically can. But since most of the content in the open world is soloable and very easy, there is no real reward or fun to get from that unless you do it solo (or unless "zerging" mobs mindlessly without any challenge is your idea of fun). Why do people think that one thing prevents the other? Can't games have the quest grind and challenging solo content co-existing with camp grind and challengin group content in the same open world zone? Can't they make both activities pretty similar as far as rewards, challenge and fun?
That is exactly what I"ve preached for years, and no one is listening.. I fail to see NO reason why games like WoW can't have camp locations in the open public zones where "elite" mobs are there.. This is asking to bring group content that is found in "dungeons" out in the open.. And furthermore, I wouldn't mind seeing NPC's that reward bounties for those elite mobs, so if I want to skip all the storyline ! ? bull.. I can, and just camp mobs for bounties....
Are you familiar with Timeless Isle in WoW? You just described it perfectly.
What you fail to realize is they are both one in the same. So the people bitching about todays mmorpgs fail to realize that they're actually bitching about how mmorpgs used to be as well. Because you can still do everything you could do back then, now.
The only things that are different between then and now is we don't have to spend as much time spent traveling, literally doing nothing but going from point A to point B. We aren't forced to group as much. And that in place of grinding skills to level them up, you now just level up a base level instead to get stronger/access to more skills.
That's the only things that are different from good mmorpgs 20 years ago, to good mmorpgs of today. Things like what this thread is about, that you cant camp for xp, its 100% false. You can still camp for xp and in fact its faster than questing in most of todays mmorpgs, but the people advocating to bring back EQ 1 don't realize that. All they see is !'s above npcs heads and say thats the only possible way you can level quickly and efficiently when they're flat out wrong.
You claim running the same scripted dungeon a million times to get a single gear piece is boring. I want you to tell me how is that any different from grinding the same "grind" spot in an open world dungeon and having your puller pull the same set of mobs while your group uses the same skills to kill them asap so your puller can go pull the next set of mobs that have respawned.
The objective answer is, they are not different. It's just 1 is riddled with cons such as dealing with kill stealers, dealing with griefers(owpvp), dealing with people who purposefully train mobs to you to get you killed. The people advocating that they want EQ do not want to deal with all of that. I'm sure there are some who have a few fond memories of those situations and laughing about them after the fact, but when it happens all the time(and trust me, it would because of how many more players there are today, especially how many more younger players there are) it quickly becomes a vast annoyance and as i said before, all you bring is ruin.