MMORPGs, Flawed by Nature - "Grind"

It seems like everyone I know that plays MMOs just gets burned out by them, myself included.  Is the current model just inherently flawed?  What's the biggest problem?  What can be done to fix it?  Are minor tweaks all that are needed, or is a massive overhaul necessary?

Grind.

That and no real plot.

But mostly grind.

This is superior.

http://www.geocities.co.jp/Playtown-Toys/8480/garushoot.html

The grind is boring but only when your by yourself. the point of an mmo is to interact with other people. if you do that and make parties and grind for hours upon hours it feels like nothing. because the conversations are always fun with other geeks :P

Conversations? Over what? "lol ouch i died"?

You don't have conversations on an MMORPG, okay? That's like saying your shit is actually gold. When you play an MMORPG, where are your hands? One on the mouse, and the other on the keyboard. Yeah, man, you're really typing brilliant stuff with one hand. And if you're typing with both hands, why the fuck aren't you killing things instead, deadweight (or on IRC or IM for that matter)?

The only thing going for MMORPG is Teamspeak, and frankly, it's more fun to blow the hell out of people in an FPS anyway. No grind, ya know?

>>5
Ever hear of downtime?

What's the point of that? Use IRC if you're going to idle.

When your game's falling back on the fact that it happens to have a chat window (available everywhere ever) to make it fun, that's a bad sign.

1- MMORPGs probably don't have chat windows just because designers think they're boring.
2- I think the bad thing with mmorpgs is the whole kill->get exp->lvl thing.  It gets boring and repetitive even if instead of goblins, you start killing orcs, then zombies, blah blah blah.  What I like in an RPG is having cool powers, not killing orcs around the clock :/
Although earning things IS necessary xD

I think the one aspect that makes people burn out on what feels like a hollow grind is the way most MMORPGs handle plots or stories. You have the developers leading the players along some overarching plot with very little possible influence from the players. This is compounded by the dozens of parallel servers/worlds run by any one MMORPG versus for example, a single server/world for a MUD. Whose story is the real one? What if one server accomplishes one "big event" task but another doesn't?

Then you have the endgame, where inevitably top players complete a small group of "high end" quests or raids over and over and over again in order to gain some marginally better item, usually dropped at random. These big quests supposedly involve momentous events in the plot or arch villains, yet there are the players, bashing away at them as if they were gophers at a carnival game.

By design it's a static world. When the only thing to do is bash the same monsters in hope of collecting rarely dropped loot, a game is going to get old real fast.

What burnt out people want and need are the means to make their own plot in the world. To actually play a role.

MMORPG suck for RP. They're just fancy dungeon hacks, only without any real plot. Nor would most MMORPG players know prose if it gang-raped them repeatedly.

Because, you know, if there was a plot, you might be able to finish the game. They don't want you to do that though, no, no. Nobody has figured out a good way to have a truly persistent world in MMORPG either ("oh, look, Zoid the boss monster has respawned for the millionth time").

If you want RP, you play a MUSH. No? Oh, well, you don't want RP then, you just want a glitzy hack. Griiiiiiiiiiind...

Video Games, by nature are quite repetitive, if you boil down into it.

Aside from that, the real thing MMORPGs have going for them is human interaction, and I think devolpers really should capatlize that with interesting game mechanics.

Something that really comes to mind is 'A Tale in the Desert'.
I think EVE online received some good praise in that apsect also.

Something also interesting happening is in 'Light and Dark' which seems to have balls-y permadeath.

MMORPGS have been follwoing the same model for years now, and I think it's only recently that there are actually games coming out to experment and pioneer the genre.

omg!! you havent played an mmorpg if you havent play World Of Warcraft. All other mmorpgs SUCK ASS.its great for role playing and it has a HUGE community

-_-

>>13 is a prime example of why I don't play MMORPGs anymore.

If that's a parody, it's really, really good.

>>15
Agreed.

WoW a noobs MMORPG

Kingdom of Loathing, bitches.

>>18
same formula in comical dressing

It irritates me how players of every MMORPG will write pages upon pages deconstructing or reverse-engineering the combat/crafting systems in order to maximize efficiency and then say one is less of a grind than another.

Then you're left with the bulk of the population fixated on one "optimum" character class or combination of characters, and everyone who tries to be a bit creative or who doesn't fit the mold is labeled a noob or idiot.

UTRPG mod. nuff said. LOL

In this forum we speak English.

>>20
I think this is a very big problem with FFXI, why i dont play it anymore.

>>20
I think this is a very big problem with FFXI, why i dont play it anymore.

>>20

You know, your right, people are allways saying the people who want there character to be what THEY want it to be, are noobs, but like stated in another thread, the world is full of stupid people, there is nothing we can do to get around that. One must learn to work around stupid people and take advantage of them.

example, in world of warcraft, a bunch of people ((almost a full raid)) who ranged from level 6-17 rushed into an instance for lvl 30+ people, they made it slightly far ((about '30' feet into the instance)) and died out, while I followed behind them and giggled to myself, killing the few things that attacked me.


>>10

>>10

People should RP on online games, because yah, the storys are static and dull.

((was me on the above post, i acc. hit add reply))

DURRR I HATE GRIND BECAUSE IM STUPID

Isn't it more like we hate grind because we're intelligent?

Grind is brain-numbing. Why do you think bots can do it?

I think this is a very big problem with FFXI, why i dont play it anymore.

I haven't ever 'truly' played an MMO since Ultima, or, grinded, really, as the gameplay in these new ones are. I just download the 30 day trial and take in the sights as much as possible, save a few screens that bring good memories, and head off after seeing everything. Just...running around goofing off really. Generally, unless you're a completionist whore, you've seen everything it has to offer by day 18 or so.

Grind is the only really way to level up

find a monster and whack the fuckers for hours on end to get 1 new level with +3 strength added onto stats or w/e

every game does this even guild wars, and WOW, ffxi etc

I wish WOW was based on Warcraft II.  You'd be a grunt with no chance of levelling up.  The only upgrade you'd get is a +1 to attack, that's it.

There was this one game, i forgot what it was called. But it got rid of the grind you normally had. You could still level up but there was so much more to do. You could tan hides, mine ore, cook things, make weapons (easilly, not complicated like most games make it out to be). You could fish and level up fishing skills. It was 2D yet the graphics were still ok. I think MMORPG's need to worry about more than just leveling up. Maybe add hundreds upon hundreds of different armors and weapons so you could actually choose what you want to look like, not only whats the best (and have millions of clones). Maybe the ability to graph different weapons or have an easy way to create your own weapons. SOMETHING, there has to be more ideas than what mmo's are doing now.

If only there was an MMO with an easy way to get rid of WoW retards and PvP freaks...

>>33

I think you are thinking of Runescape.

Is classic superior to the 3D version?

Ultima online 1997.

Darkfall online 2007.

Explain Darkfall

>>37

what are you talking about?

The grind is pretty much why I gave up on Maple Story.  Having to kill 500,000 ribbon pigs so I can level up enough to use the next teir weapon got old real quick.