TL, let's talk MMORPGs - Page 3

Whenever I don't play Starcraft 2, I probably play any MMORPG I can find.

Here's a list of my favourites of all time with a short explanation as this is not my blog. Just a bit of background information about my experiences.

- Ragnarok Online. Played since late alpha, early beta. Was my first MMO ever and my first "real game" on the computer (got into it through my brother.). I also got my girlfriend into playing it and this is how I made her a gaming nerd.
- Ultima Online. Do I have to explain this?
- Dark Age of Camelot; since my brother stopped playing Ragnarok Online and I hadn't have internet access on my computer I pretty much had to play that. But I enjoyed it as f****. It was so good and it was also the first game where I encountered PvP.
- Not an MMORPG, but CORPG, was Guild Wars. It was the first game where I played PvP really really hardcore, before that I was the PvE-Grind guy(and I still am.)
- WoW. Yea, I have to admit that I have a WoW phase. It lasted only 3 months and was mostly due to my friends that wanted to play it. After 3 months I said "Guys, it's lame. I go back to play Ragnarok Online."
- Aion. It lasted 1 months, korean version was fun but asa it came to EU/NA patches began to suck.
- I also tried any other MMORPG that is out there including Rift, Age of Conan, Everquest etc(really everything including most of the F2P games.). I'm a hardcore gamer and I'm also a hardcore MMORPG fan. But most of these games suck so I never played for a long time.

And so I did, every few months or so I go back to play on my old Ragnarok Account. What can I say, that game is hella fun. I sometimes play other games again, too. But Ragnarok Online is definitely the one I play most often, just because it's so easy to get into. Pick a build, play it. Done.

Okay, now that you have enough background to know where I come from, I want to answer your questions.

I'd like to answer the second one first.

Yes, every MMORPG is a grind. Face it: The tasks you do in an MMORPG, you do them all over again everytime. You complete a quest, get a new one, kill monsters, complete a quest, get a new one etc etc. Sometimes you even don't get a quest.
But after all it is all about killing monsters and doing other stuff like crafting or PvP.

Most people say "Grinding sucks, I want a good MMORPG without grinding"
This is a common misunderstanding that most people have. Because without grinding, you wouldn't even have stuff to do in an MMORPG. Grinding, in this case, is nothing bad, but the only way to describe what you actually do.

Here's my small definition portion of grinding:
- Mob Grinding. It's my favourite. You get a couple of friends, pick your favourite classes and then go mash the f*** out of monsters for hours while listening to music/teamspeak or whatever. It can be sooo good, especially in games like Ragnarok Online. The doing-it-alone version of this can be fun, too, but I recommend to do it with friends. This is the oldschool way and is not really done in most new MMORPGs.
- Quest Grinding. This is most fun doing alone just because of the way it works. You get all your quests in a certain area and complete them one by one. Most likely you'll just have to kill mobs so you just grind some mobs, but never too much so that you just complete the quest and go. Until you don't have quests left or you're in a new area. This is the modern way of grind.
- Hybrid Grinding: While you still "grind your quests", you kill every mob you can find. If respawn timings are properly, you will eventually get twice the amount of xp while only losing like 50% of the time.

What I personally find unacceptable for an MMORPG is the "quest only" policy. In a game like World Of Warcraft, which basically has a good system, like the battlesystem where you really have to think about what you do(at least when you're using no add ons), there's always no fun into the grind. You just have to questgrind all day until you get into an instance and you cross your fingers you farmed enough to have good enough equipment to get into good groups.
Otherwise, you have to play with randoms. All. the. time.

Like you said, those games don't really support groups. In fact, they hurt you. If you get a group you can't do all the same quests, at least not if you didn't start at the same time and only play when the others are online, too. Otherwise, you'll always have to wait or do stuff more than one time and kill more monsters because you get less XP.

Another annoying point about most MMORPGs is that the PvP doesn't have a point. Like, for real; it's senseless. Stupid button mashing all over the place. If you take Lineage 2, PvP was a risk. It was a way to claim political power and to protect it. It was a way to settle issues and it was also a way of take advantage over something. It always had impact and a meaning if you killed somebody, at least once you get into an alliance. Which you did, otherwise you'd be dead.

Next, the crafting and economy. Whats the point of it? Imagine Aion. Lol, what senseless moneysink, it was like they wanted to support the gold farmers. Seriously? 5 Million for a CHANCE of getting a decent weapon? REALLY? I only have 2 Million, I need to farm 3 weeks for a CHANCE!?
And then I don't even get to sell it if I want to use it first!? REALLY?
Not only are bound items crap, because they kill the economy, but also no item duration kills crafting in it's very own way. Everyone can craft, everyone can make their stuff, why even bother leveling this shit up?
Oh wait, I see, you have to get rid of the MUDflation so we have to buy this shit. Okay.

I imagine most modern MMORPGs like this:
- "Hey let's make classes n stuff"
- "Oh and you should be able to make stuff to"
- "Oooh dude let's get giant bosses in there"
- "Hey let's make this shit, too."
And then they just randomly mix it together and call it Guild Wars 2. Lol. No, no offense.

Another point:
While I think Guild Wars 2 will be a decent grind game that I will love to play, I still think that there are some great flaws in it. And that is not only the problem with Guild Wars 2, but with most modern MMORPGs:

1. The battlesystem.
Pressing 1 button over and over again while sometimes pressing 3 and 4 is called a "complex battle system with great opportunities."
Let's just take Ragnarok Online, a game which got PvP patched into it because it wasn't the main point of the game at first.
It became a huge mechanic fest because you had not only to "macromanage" with your items, you also had decent micro abilities with equipment switching, skill placement and preparation.
Of course, it was limited, but I remember WoE sessions with battlemode activated where I came close to the APM I have to use in Starcraft 2 now.

Looking at Guild Wars 1(and 2), I barely see any movement in the fingers other than "123123123". It's the "1a" equivalent. There's no point in it, yet it is the most succesful way. People love it.

And what is worse:
It's the players' fault. WoW had a nice battlesystem overall but because people wanted to have it easy they created complex macros and addons to solve this. They basically made their starcraft mmo into a 1a-random-rts-mmo.

2. The partysystem
Okay, this point is actually a huge bonus for Guild Wars 2. The way they solved it is great, but I hope they won't f*** it up till the point it is abusable. For clarification: In Guild Wars 2 you just get into an event and get partied with everyone around in the event. Great move.

However, most MMORPGs punish you for making a group. You only get 40% of the xp, you have to do quests multiple times, sometimes you have to find completely different places; the loot gets rarer and worse etc.
Ragnarok Online REWARDS you for groups, grants you bonus loot and xp(or was it just xp? Can't remember eveerything <.>). Guild Wars 2 will also reward you for grouping, even force you to group. That is awesome.

3. The economy.
When you look at EVE online, it's an quite...exaggerated version of an economy & crafting. But in it's own system, it works.
Another great example for this is Ragnarok Online. The economy basically is a playable feature put into a class. The basic crafting, which is not that big but it works, is also included within the merchant class-tree. And they get nice toys like the humunculus or the carts. It's just a small thing but I remember spending hours n hours interacting with people while trading, crafting and babbling.

4. The freedom and exploring the world.
There is none. Exploring the world will end in just another texture.
Even if you take games like EVE or Fallen Earth the game has an end, and after playing it the first time it is boring. Everything is a one time thing and you won't even be that surpirsed, because what else than another tree could there be if you are in a forest? If there was a cave, you already probably heard of it as an instance or so.

This leads me to the last point I want to talk about before I end this, because I won't really change anything but I hope I could help some people.

5. Instances
I could say "Instances are another way of seperating people from each other", but Instances do even more. While they can create decent content that looks better than the usual grind, they usually give too high rewards. You are bascially forced to play them, even if you don't want to and just grind through the open world with all of your friends.
This is another point for Guild Wars 2(if it's true), as you are not forced into the instances.
Getting too high rewards from instances, that are usually BoP, kills player interaction even more and reduces it to a simple
"DPS high enough? Build? Ok go."
"Don't roll for twinks, main-only drops." Blargh.
I'm not a great instance fan, but I have to admit that sometimes, if done properly they are great fun.


Okay, without further babbling about the topic, I want to answer your question with a small list. Not ordered, they all have their place:

EVE Online and Fallen Earth for the great persistent worlds and economy/crafting, also freedom in what you want to do with your character. (Fallen Earth P2P, not F2P.) Ultima Online most likely belongs here, too.
Ragnarok Online, Dark Age of Camelot and Lineage 2. Even though I never really got into Lineage 2, it is great. Those 3 games have great PvE, great PvP(well ragnarok is a bit lame after a while but it has it's good sides.), reward groups all the way, are truly "massive" when it comes to multiplayer, don't make mistakes with the crafting and their economy and are just hella fun to play with your friends.

No, I'm not naming WoW here. If you could play WoW without all the add ons, macros and mixed in with more group-supporting ways to play, then 100times yes, but the current state is just too flawed.


Conclusion is the tl;dr.