Osk grinding mmorpgs are the point of keeping players paying. However as we have seen in thread after thread here and else where at what point does it become such a pattern of repeat that it is boring? It becomes to boring when we as a player do not feel like loging in even one more time.
Recently i reached 55 in a cap game at 60, Hated the area the developers made, the time sinks the repair costs still insane. It was getting to the point if i logged in i lost character funds instead of any gains. When that seems obvious it is when players stop or move on to another game.
There should be a combination in mmorpgs so repitition is not the main focus of the game. However with linear game play we see in most games today that linear is so well defined it lacks any meaning except to see a number on top a characters head change.
Remember when we use to be in awe of those that reached end game had the bright shiney toys we wanted? Many of us changed our game play at this point knowing we could not do the grind to achieve that .
Rather it be end game raid gear that takes 10- 20 tries if one is sucessful with the random /roll or if the group survives the encounter.
When players stop thinking that shiney new toy is not all that that , or the reward is not worth the effort it takes, is when the developers lose......
I am doing my game design master at full sail... Today (an exciting day with new ffXIV on the horizon)... we discussed on class how mmorpgs reward by punishing you... grinding and how annoying it can become for some people, specially the mature audiences that dont have all the free time young audiences do (work, wife, kids, bills, life.. and all that bs) This just made me think about the next mmo i will be playing "Aion", and since the game is from the east.. i can already expect some serious mindless grinding.. and it is becoming a big turn off for me right now. Shouldnt mmorpgs reward your skills? not how long you can sit in front of a computer screen smashing buttons? Some mmorpgs do, others dont. I would love to read what other people around here think about the subject. Thank you...
You have time to play games while attending FullSail? Our interns that have attended in the past said they barely had time to eat, much less play a MMO, especially one like FF=) Good luck, hehe. The cool thing is you won't miss playing.
MMOs forever have rewarded time spent playing and persistence more than actual skill. The whole monthly fee model plays into that structure. Skill and orgtanization does come into play with raiding and PvP, but people who play the most are normally the best, so it always comes back full circle.
Grind is such a misused word. Even in sports you have to practice something repetitively to get used to it. Footwork in badminton, just dance around the court for a few weeks before I am even handed a racket, that is when I was eight years old. So do you call that a grind. When I was in the school band, we practice 2 hours everyday, the same practice tunes. Is that grinding? Even at work, half of the work are repetitions of almost the same nature, or the few regular combination/mix. Is that grinding? Now take the most mundane grind in an MMO, pulling a camp of mobs. There are times you overpull, there are time you got a very unfortunate add spawned from nowhere, there are times the healer went disconnected after a pull. Yes we grind, we do a lot in everquest, but still there are incidents that make one particular pull a big fight or a big wipe. Nowadays, many games hide the grind elements well. During the route to another "NPC", as part of a delivery quest, you run across random mobs you need to clear way thru, you kill them, loot them, skin them. You run pass mineral ore, herbs you need to clear way to, kill, skin as usual. Before you realise it, you have finished a quest, killed a few, looted some ore/herb, skinned a few. That goes to skinning level up, mining level up, herbing level up, general xp and hence character level up. That also provides mats for crafting, as you can now craft a few leather pieces, or use the herb/minerals for whatever craft you see fit. Is that grinding? Your view my view. I can only say, so long as I enjoy it, I hardly need to ask this question: "is this a grind"? Heck during the EQ1 days or SWG, we do not feel that much about grinding, even tho it is clearly horrible grinds. Instead we were busy LFG, running to the dungeon zone, zone in and fight all the way to the camp, and possibly wipe and rinse. Is it grind? Does it matter? If the game is fun, does it matter?
Well you cant compare sports to gaming.. UNLESS you are a professional gamer.. and most of us are not.
If the grind is fun for you, then thats good... for you . and i am sure alot of people like grinding, just as everyone is different.
But my point of view is from someone that tries to have a life and at the same time enjoy mmorpgs, and i deny the fact that people might say mmos are not for me, because they are. I just a model that is going to have to change eventually
If you watch The Karate Kid backwards it's about this karate champ that just kinda slowly becomes a pussy and ends up moving back to Jersey
I am doing my game design master at full sail... Today (an exciting day with new ffXIV on the horizon)... we discussed on class how mmorpgs reward by punishing you... grinding and how annoying it can become for some people, specially the mature audiences that dont have all the free time young audiences do (work, wife, kids, bills, life.. and all that bs) This just made me think about the next mmo i will be playing "Aion", and since the game is from the east.. i can already expect some serious mindless grinding.. and it is becoming a big turn off for me right now. Shouldnt mmorpgs reward your skills? not how long you can sit in front of a computer screen smashing buttons? Some mmorpgs do, others dont. I would love to read what other people around here think about the subject. Thank you...
You have time to play games while attending FullSail? Our interns that have attended in the past said they barely had time to eat, much less play a MMO, especially one like FF=) Good luck, hehe. The cool thing is you won't miss playing.
MMOs forever have rewarded time spent playing and persistence more than actual skill. The whole monthly fee model plays into that structure. Skill and orgtanization does come into play with raiding and PvP, but people who play the most are normally the best, so it always comes back full circle.
I have time , im not doing a bachelor, im doing the Master degree, i have more free time than bachelors. lucky for me lol
If you watch The Karate Kid backwards it's about this karate champ that just kinda slowly becomes a pussy and ends up moving back to Jersey
"Reward you by punishment" isn't a good way of looking at the problem. The real questions for any genre are, 1. Are my game's activities fun?
2. Are my game's activities fun for as long as I ask players to perform them?
3. How is gameplay varied?
4. What (if any) new activities are introduced? When are they introduced? Players only label it "grind" when they feel the gameplay pattern hasn't changed sufficiently for a certain length of time. From the 2-8 hour mark of Lineage 2 my character fought every mob the exact same way. Repetitively cast damage spells, loot, damage spells, loot, damage spells, loot, ad infinitum. 6 hours with no gameplay pattern variation. No new abilities. The pattern wasn't interesting to begin with (damage/loot/damage/loot). Different enemies were carbon-copies. 6 hours of identical gameplay. WOW isn't an ideal contrast, because it's grindy, but even a grindy game makes Lineage 2 look silly. The base pattern still isn't very interesting (damage/loot/damage/loot), but I quickly learn new abilities which vary this pattern. Later I learn abilities which vary the pattern further since they key off of random parts of combat (such as Overpower only being available after an attack is Dodged.) Enemies have significantly better variance than Lineage 2 (though the variance is still pretty low.) Also, the rate at which I go back to town to do quests is much higher (and as boring as 'right-click on NPC' is as an activity, it at least varies what would otherwise be a very long grind-fest on mobs.) So it might've been more helpful if your teacher covered:
ways to vary gameplay patterns (new stuff I can do, new places I can go, new stuff the enemies can do, etc) ways to pace introduction of new patterns (now you have a Spell Interrupt ability and can interrupt enemies who cast spells! Now you can participate in PVP. Now you can run this instance.) When introducing new patterns, how much is too much? (too many activities can mean doing each one poorly, and activities shouldn't stomp on previous activity mastery -- if I fight on the ground then buy a spaceship and the rest of the game happens in space, then all my time spent learning ground combat is useless!)
Basically it's a balance between variance, and not overdoing it. The best part is, every player will have their own opinion (especially on the 3rd question.) In fact, Bethesda basically makes a wealthy living ignoring my 3rd suggestion entirely and just spamming quick activities at the player (so even though Fallout 3's combat, lockpicking, hacking, etc, are pretty shallow individually, they add up with the superb Quest structure and Dialog to craft a relatively fun game.)
"Little boys secretly love to get spanked...", throw that into your thesis (or what have you).
What is good without bad anyway? Very lonely...that's what...or "Good cop/Bad cop", call it whatever you want. Reinforcement comes from more than just positive sources. I'll just leave it at that for today...lol
i had a huge reply ready for this but upon reflection, i decided to not post it after all.
ill just leave it at, im not a huge fan of full sail, digipen, or the art institute's game design courses.
good luck with school though
i already finished school many years ago as a computer animator, i worked for games for a while and i been doing pretty good, no complains , now im doing a master, is aimed at game production mostly but there is some game design too, is not the same as other game design courses, is pretty new it started on october last year
If you watch The Karate Kid backwards it's about this karate champ that just kinda slowly becomes a pussy and ends up moving back to Jersey
i had a huge reply ready for this but upon reflection, i decided to not post it after all.
ill just leave it at, im not a huge fan of full sail, digipen, or the art institute's game design courses.
good luck with school though
i already finished school many years ago as a computer animator, i worked for games for a while and i been doing pretty good, no complains , now im doing a master, is aimed at game production mostly but there is some game design too, is not the same as other game design courses, is pretty new it started on october last year
So you are responsible for some of the Scarecrow (from wizard of oz) like movements in some video games.... <decides to do mean things to you in your sleep> ^^ Good luck with schoole.
Comments
Osk grinding mmorpgs are the point of keeping players paying. However as we have seen in thread after thread here and else where at what point does it become such a pattern of repeat that it is boring? It becomes to boring when we as a player do not feel like loging in even one more time.
Recently i reached 55 in a cap game at 60, Hated the area the developers made, the time sinks the repair costs still insane. It was getting to the point if i logged in i lost character funds instead of any gains. When that seems obvious it is when players stop or move on to another game.
There should be a combination in mmorpgs so repitition is not the main focus of the game. However with linear game play we see in most games today that linear is so well defined it lacks any meaning except to see a number on top a characters head change.
Remember when we use to be in awe of those that reached end game had the bright shiney toys we wanted? Many of us changed our game play at this point knowing we could not do the grind to achieve that .
Rather it be end game raid gear that takes 10- 20 tries if one is sucessful with the random /roll or if the group survives the encounter.
When players stop thinking that shiney new toy is not all that that , or the reward is not worth the effort it takes, is when the developers lose......
You have time to play games while attending FullSail? Our interns that have attended in the past said they barely had time to eat, much less play a MMO, especially one like FF=) Good luck, hehe. The cool thing is you won't miss playing.
MMOs forever have rewarded time spent playing and persistence more than actual skill. The whole monthly fee model plays into that structure. Skill and orgtanization does come into play with raiding and PvP, but people who play the most are normally the best, so it always comes back full circle.
Well you cant compare sports to gaming.. UNLESS you are a professional gamer.. and most of us are not.
If the grind is fun for you, then thats good... for you
. and i am sure alot of people like grinding, just as everyone is different.
But my point of view is from someone that tries to have a life and at the same time enjoy mmorpgs, and i deny the fact that people might say mmos are not for me, because they are. I just a model that is going to have to change eventually
If you watch The Karate Kid backwards it's about this karate champ that just kinda slowly becomes a pussy and ends up moving back to Jersey
You have time to play games while attending FullSail? Our interns that have attended in the past said they barely had time to eat, much less play a MMO, especially one like FF=) Good luck, hehe. The cool thing is you won't miss playing.
MMOs forever have rewarded time spent playing and persistence more than actual skill. The whole monthly fee model plays into that structure. Skill and orgtanization does come into play with raiding and PvP, but people who play the most are normally the best, so it always comes back full circle.
I have time
, im not doing a bachelor, im doing the Master degree, i have more free time than bachelors. lucky for me lol
If you watch The Karate Kid backwards it's about this karate champ that just kinda slowly becomes a pussy and ends up moving back to Jersey
What he said. ^^
"Little boys secretly love to get spanked...", throw that into your thesis (or what have you).
What is good without bad anyway? Very lonely...that's what...or "Good cop/Bad cop", call it whatever you want. Reinforcement comes from more than just positive sources. I'll just leave it at that for today...lol
Sounds like an interesting program btw, OP >>
i already finished school many years ago as a computer animator, i worked for games for a while and i been doing pretty good, no complains
, now im doing a master, is aimed at game production mostly but there is some game design too, is not the same as other game design courses, is pretty new it started on october last year
If you watch The Karate Kid backwards it's about this karate champ that just kinda slowly becomes a pussy and ends up moving back to Jersey
i already finished school many years ago as a computer animator, i worked for games for a while and i been doing pretty good, no complains
, now im doing a master, is aimed at game production mostly but there is some game design too, is not the same as other game design courses, is pretty new it started on october last year
So you are responsible for some of the Scarecrow (from wizard of oz) like movements in some video games.... <decides to do mean things to you in your sleep> ^^ Good luck with schoole.