Warlordrody

Okay guys. Back in the old onrpg we used to have alot of debates. I really enjoyed them. So iam planning to ressurecting it a bit. This is my first one. Iam planning to start one every week or few days. (Depends how popular it becomes)


This time the subject is... Grinding.

Every MMORPG has grind. People Either love it or hate it. I will be discussing the good sides of grind and the bad sides. Some people will think? Good sides with grinding? No way!! Yes there are some good sides.

What keeps the majority to a MMO? The anwser: Grind..
You will be thinking: Grind!! no way thats not fun!!. 0.01% with maplestory is just sick X.X. Yes i cant disagree with that. But imagine what if there was no grind in maple story? That you would be max level in a week? Or even no levels? but only farming items and gold? It takes the whole fun part from maple story away. Because you have the feeling you cant achieve something. Something that will make you better than the rest. Like showing off your high level character. Socializing with other people when grinding. Without grind MMORPGS will just be boring in my opinion.

Yep but with grind, MMORPGS can also become boring. Because in mid-high levels you usually get 0.01% per monster. That makes playing it feel like work. And that shouldnt be the purpose of a game. A game should be fun. This is the reason why the majority of the mmo's fail. And when people achieve max level, whats left to do? Some pvp some raidbosses. Getting the best equips. Sieging, a castle with your guild, go on a pk rampage. And after you done this you are done with this MMORPG.

So, When we take away the grind in a MMORPG, What will be left to do? Only some other content like pvping sieging. Grind is something that keeps players to the game.

So how can developers improve it? I think the anwser is clear after you have read all of this: Adding alot of feature's. What do you think about A world that can be influenced by your characters actions? That is something that can keep players to the game for a long time.

A perfect way to keep the grinding fun In my opinion is: Adding alot of levels and make leveling up fast. As example 5000 levels. But these 5000 levels will take the same time to reach max level in another game. And of course adding alot of feature's not just 4-5 But ALOT more. Heck the reason why singeplayer RPG's are so awesome is because you are able to change the world.

Well this is it. I hope you learned something from this.
I will post another one depending on how popular this becomes.

Post your opinion about this people!

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Kn7ghT

Who gave you the mighty thor's hammer of debate?

Also, there should be 2 restrictions, a low level cap, or a steady exp gain at later levels. .01% is just mad, too mad, and is the reason I don't play high level cap mmos. The most important key to gaming is balance, and most Korean developers don't know that. Most people don't have all the damn time in the world to grind, while a 40 year old man living in his basement can pass everybody in terms of levels.

In other words, grinding takes the fun out of what gaming was originally made of. Look at classics such as pac man and mario, it's not about spending time not having fun and hitting max level, its about competition and having fun, and thats what all games should be about, fun.

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Deimos

good idea about more debates, although it usually descends into the fiery pits of satans anus if it involves religion or politics.




grinding in games.... hmm. the thing is some people actually LIKE grinding so its pretty much impossible to make a perfect game that caters to everyones taste.

Personally though i think that obviously levelling should be easier at lower levels to ease you into the game. but once you get halfway up the level ladder the aount of grinding you need to do should remain constant.

instead of ranking up the difficulty by reducing xp gained each level until it reaches astronomically difficult status, there should be a limit. so once you hid mid to three quarters of the way through the level cap it should take a bit of work to get to the next level but it shouldnt keep increasing to stupid amounts.

also games need to have different ways of levelling. its probably impossible or really hard to do but grinding solo for hours on end shouldnt be the best or most efficient or even the only way of levelling. quests and events and other things like that should form an alternative and just as efficient way of levelling.

i dunno about everyone else but im tired of wandering game worlds which are fairly densely populated but where everyone is solely concentrated on doing their own thing and the only conversation you get is "my kill" "no ks" "my spawn" "move or kos noob".

if games incorporated more awesome end game stuff and more events centered around players who hit the level cap then they wont need stupid amounts of grinding to keep people interested.

after all, in my opinion a game which requires a player to grind endlessly for fulfilment is a flawed game.

grinding is for koreans (sorry) and is centered around people who like to play the "loner" in games and just be dicks to everyone (in my experience)

i like games which have a good community and focus around guilds and actually talking and interacting with other players beyond "by ur sord?" "nfs"
i mean whats the point in playing a game with thousands of other people if nobody even talks to each other

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Jakuza

I like grind, but not Silkroad grind. Its a KILLER. I'm fine with Maple Story grind. I want a grind thats fun, but not overly long lasting. I think the grind in Guild Wars is pretty good.

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kain222

In Yahtzee Crosshaw's words:

"Taking the grind out of MMOS is all very well until you think about it but the grind is the only thing which keeps people playing mmos for so long and removing it would be like removing the crazy from richard garriot and besides every mmo out there seems to have a grind right up the bum dosent stop people playing them, some people just like that kind of thing i guess, some people find fat people sexy i dont understand them myself but then again no one understands why i cover my cock in lettuce and hide it in other peoples salad."

(( yes, i know, worlds longest sentence but thats how yahtzee talks in his reviews. ))

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Ronin

Well, what keeps gamers in a game is the sense of achievement, that you have once you better your character, be it level equipment, or whatever useful or useless attribute.

This means, that a game needs content, which is reachable in considerable short time-intervals.

Many games do not have either a complex item, level and skill, or upgrading system, that achieves a constant sense of bettering your character. To add, they like to stretch out that small amount of content even more, once you hit high levels.
We call that grind.

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Bacn

I don't like grind. Not because I find it boring, but because it give game developers a chance to slack off. Developers shouldn't just make progressively stronger mobs and give you a new sword every 20 levels, they should strive to keep their game new and exiting. But most of the games we're talking about are free so there isn't much of an incentive for developers to go the extra mile.

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Cingal

As long as it's fun, I can't really complain.

However.

The only game where grinding was fun for me was FFXI.

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Deimos

thats true about free games. i always feel like im being cheated in a game when all you do is grind, like they couldnt be bothered to make the game more innovative.

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kok3114

wow is the best choice i think

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