Think I'll quit and go back to UO.

[blindy]

The main issue with quests is not a percentage of them forcing grouping. It is knowing where to find them, or accidentally passing some up that you failed to notice because they were in the back corner of town. You can go from level 1 to level 60 without ever doing an elite quest OR spending any significant time XP grinding.

I'm really dubious of this claim.  Have you gone from 1-60 (in either beta or retail) on a horde character without dong any instances, elite quests, non-elite quests that still required grouping, or grinding?  I don't think it can be done.  I'm 55 on a tauren warrior, and your claim doesn't match my experience.  I don't spend a lot of time in instances or do a lot of elite quests (though I've done some), and I've run out of quests that I can solo on quite a few occassions.  The levels are longer and there are less quests per zone than in the early levels.  At 49, for instance, I went to Ashzara and did every quest I could solo (which was pretty much every quest I could find except one line) and got about half a level.  

It could be I missed a lot of quests someplace, but I don't know where.  And I would have needed a huge amount more of quests to go from 45-55  purely on soloable quests; at least double the amount I got, maybe more.    Additionally, pretty much everyone I know that's 45+ has either grinded, spent a lot of time in instances, or is a hunter (who can solo many outdoors elite quests, not to mention non-elites a warrior would still have trouble with, like escort quests).

I will say, though, that the number of quests I have at 55 seems better than at 45.  The mid 40s to the low 50s was a real quest lull for me.  I had mostly completed Feralas and Tanaris.  I went to some zones I hadn't yet been to, like Swamp of Sorrows and Badlands, only to find them mostly green (and still did them).  Zones like Hinterlands, Blasted Lands, Ashzara, and Searing Gorge simply didn't have that many quests in them (that I could find).  Once you hit like 51 or 52 though, Burning Steppes, Felwood, Un'Goro Crater and Western Plaguelands become practical to solo, and the quest situation improves.

[Venkman]

The path of advancement is so predictable and linear

UO/SWG on one side DAoEQWoW on the other. This has been the case for a long time. WoW is just the currently-reigning champ of the EQ style of play. It does it very well, but make no mistake, WoW is no more comparable to UO than EQ was.

Why you play one or the other isn't about the game, it's about personal preference. UO offers nearly flat character advancement because character advancement and unravelling game-directed storylines is not what the game is about. What you do with yourself once you've got the character you want is what the game is about. It's entirely self-motivated, and gives enough tools for breadth. Same with SWG. Players don't spend most of their time worrying about maximizing their character. That's a foregone conclusion, a Schrodinger-esque constant in time just waiting for players to catch up. You don't spend 90% of your enjoyment of the game trying to become a Bounty Hunter. You spend 90% of your enjoyment of the game trying to find stuff to do as a Bounty Hunter, until you become bored and want to find some new way to enjoy the game.

WoW offers fast character advancement, but it's still about character advancement in a game-directed storyline. Once you hit level 60 in the current game, there's not much more to do than if you maximized a character in EQlive. Yea, Battlegrounds will eventually add relevance to the PvP that is currently just deathmatch and keeping others from completing quests (or "enriching the act of questing within a dynamic virtual world" if you like the PvP stuff ;) ). But for right now, players invent their own reasons to stick with the game that either involves helping friends, re-experiencing the linear game, or camping forums about it.

This is mostly just "tastes great"/"less filling" sorta faire.

And just to qualify: there's plenty of story and lore in UO just like there's plenty of ways to not bother with story and lore in WoW. That requires you care though, and sometimes it's just easier to not. That's nothing the game is going to change.

[kaid]

One complaint I have heard about WoW that is for me both a good and a bad are the pretty obvious quest paths. Generally say if you start by storm wind you will do quests in a pretty directed progression through goldshire to westfalls to the red hills and so on.

I know some do not like it because they felt it led them by the nose. I can see their point but one thing WoW does a good job with is making sure nearly all the content in the game gets used. In eqlive and many games after a pretty short time you fill find some areas just being ignored and never visited because there was no reason to see them.

The quests in wow pretty much lead you on a tour of zones that are currently level appropriate for you.

All in all though it is a game that appeals to people differantly than something  like UO or SWG. If you truly enjoy UO that much you may want to try out SWG which is a very similar type of game with alot prettier less eye stabby graphics/interface.


kaid

[sidereal]

I know some do not like it because they felt it led them by the nose.

Ack.  I feel the opposite.  I was greatly irritated the few times I had to wander around randomly trying to figure out where the quest givers are.  Localizing by level minimized that.  It also means you can quickly tell whether you should be in a zone or not.  If I wander into a Crater and get jumped by 4 ?? mobs, I can be pretty confident that there is nothing in that zone I should be dealing with and no quests there for me.

[Der Helm]

"enriching the act of questing within a dynamic virtual world" if you like the PvP stuff

/copy
/paste

Thank you a lot ...

[WindupAtheist]

If you truly enjoy UO that much you may want to try out SWG which is a very similar type of game with alot prettier less eye stabby graphics/interface.

What turned me off SWG was hearing people talk about all the foozles they killed, and the relative merits of fencing versus swordsmanship.  Jesus holy shit Christ, any dev team that takes fucking Star Wars and turns it into killing critters with your two-handed sword can kiss my ass.

[Dark Vengeance]

If you truly enjoy UO that much you may want to try out SWG which is a very similar type of game with alot prettier less eye stabby graphics/interface.

What turned me off SWG was hearing people talk about all the foozles they killed, and the relative merits of fencing versus swordsmanship.  Jesus holy shit Christ, any dev team that takes fucking Star Wars and turns it into killing critters with your two-handed sword can kiss my ass.

As opposed to what? Cyber s3xx0r1nG using your l33t Jedi mind tricks?

Bring the noise.
Cheers................

[WindupAtheist]

What SWG shoulda done:

*  Set the game in a different era of Star Wars, one where there are plenty of Jedi and Sith.  As Raph posted elsewhere on this site, someone above him demanded it be set in the movie era, and that's a shame.  Knights of the Old Republic and plenty of other games have proven that's not the only era that can sell.

*  Now that there's plenty of Jedi and Sith, let people be them without grinding for months on end.  Just don't make them TOO uber (c'mon, Jango Fett did pretty well in that fight with Obi Wan) and make it so they can't own housing.  That'll keep everyone from being them, and if everyone wants to be a Jedi anyway, fucking let them.

*  Make most of the PvE be against intelligent beings rather than animals.  Throw in pirates, organized criminal factions, gang members, a rogue Jedi and his followers, the Republic army, whatever.  Lots of small factions, not two huge ones.

*  Have them all give quests to kick the shit out of each other, and if you kick the shit out of faction X enough, they stop talking to you, attack you on sight, etc.  Let players get back to "barely tolerated" status with a given faction by paying a fee or doing some difficult quest, so they don't permanently bork themselves.

*  Let them sign on as official members of a given faction, and PvP against people in whatever faction theirs hates.

*  Ditch the official in-game political skillset.  Jeez, what a way to bork a template with something that should either be roleplayed or just plain gamed.

*  Smuggling and bounty hunting are already in, and I'll give the benefit of the doubt and assume they're pretty good.  In my alternate universe SWG, however, there's less time spent on Wookie dancing and more spent on making these systems really polished.

*  Lots of clothing that either functions as or can be worn over armor, and recolored easily, ala UO.

[Margalis]

What SWG should have done:

Ctrl A
Delete
Find new lines of work

[Pineapple]

What SWG shoulda done:

What SWG should have done was not be UO with a small dash of AO wrapped in Star Wars graphics.

The whole Jedi system might have made the game a wee bit more like Star Wars, well except for Jedi having to grind out a bunch skills that have nothing to do with the Force.

Some of the team that brought you UO decided to remake UO with Wookies. Too bad that sucked.

[stray]

I liked the UO elements myself. If it was designed by McQuaid, SWG would be even worse. Much worse.

If it wasn't for HAM, Battle Wounds, and the extreme focus on player interpendency, the game would be pretty good, I think. But I don't think it's broken by design necessarily. These things can be fixed or adjusted. Whether they will be is yet to be seen.

[Venkman]

The quests in wow pretty much lead you on a tour of zones that are currently level appropriate for you.

I consider it a macro-tutorial. It's not some front-loaded tutorial that teaches you basics and then lets you loose upon the world (ala EQ, SWG, or AC1). It's a game guide that'll lead you from 1 to 60. It's not just the levels and zones either. It's the equipment you get and the tradeskills you can practice. Tradeskill application in zones is governed by it's own set of levels (like, you need to collect Silverleaf to work Herbalism high enough to collect Mageroyal and beyond, and eventually you'll be in zones that offer Khadgar's Whisker but no Silverleaf... which is fine if you worked Alchemy up to a similar level because nothing of worth needs Silverleah anyway).

Two reasons I like it:
[list=1][*]It's telling a progressive story. If you follow the game "as intended", you'll learn the lore.
[*]It's entirely voluntary. Someone who likes EQ can play EQ in WoW. [/list:o]

What SWG shoulda done:

The internet almost imploded last June during the under the mountain of pentabytes written about this very topic. Think of the children before you start tossing grenades like that again man!

What SWG shoulda done was not be called Star Wars at all.

[schild]

What SWG should have done:

Ctrl A
Delete
Find new lines of work

<3

[WindupAtheist]

What SWG shoulda done was not be called Star Wars at all.

This is quite true.  While someone might enjoy being a humble lumberjack in Ultima Online, a Star Wars title is bound to suffer from ten times as much "I want to be THE hero!" syndrome.

Still, folks keep telling me I'd like it.  I'll probably give it a shot next time UO starts boring the shit outta me again.

[Riggswolfe]

Windup,

Here's my advice about SWG. If you like Star Wars at all, do not under any circumstances play SWG. It is not Star Wars.

It is a huge grind fest, with lots of forced interaction with players who are probably afk macroing anyway. UO other than Raph's belief players would police themselves and act civil was kind of cool. SWG is a failed experiment.

Hell, AO, with a Star Wars makeover would be more Star Wars than SWG is.

[stray]

On the other hand, it's not really that much of a grindfest if you have no intentions of playing a Jedi. Riggs tried taking that step, so it's going to color his opinion somewhat.

I have a Bounty Hunter, which is always somewhere around the second or third best combat spec, but it doesn't even take half the time or resources to make one as it does to climb up the Jedi skill tree. And definitely not near the amount it takes to unlock force sensitivity (especially if the Holocron says that you must "learn Master Bounty Hunter").

I already had an Expert BH in the first month of release, and that was the biggest known grind at the time. I have no direct experience with Jedi's, but if I'm not mistaken, it's at least 6 months or so. Big difference. Especially considering that a Bounty Hunter is still capable of killing Jedi's (or so I've heard).

[WindupAtheist]

If I play, I'll probably just build a character up enough to do something cool, and then get at it.  What does an expert bounty hunter do in SWG, precisely?

I mean, that's really what a game should be about...  Develop a character than can do something fun, and then go do it.  Characters in EQ and it's spawn don't seem to do anything.  You're just expected to keep developing them forever, because That's What You Do in a MMOG.

[stray]

If I play, I'll probably just build a character up enough to do something cool, and then get at it.  What does an expert bounty hunter do in SWG, precisely?

It's an extension to the Scout and Marksman trees, and theoretically, the best path to go down if you want a pure combat character...At least the kind that uses guns. They also get special missions and droids to track down bounties etc..

The only thing is, as a Master Bounty Hunter, it takes up so many skill slots that that's about all you can do. It feels more like a "class" in the EQ sense than most of the other paths in SWG. But for good reason. They're already versatile enough as it is.
If you wanted to dabble in things though, you can do that too, and still be quite effective.

The only skills you don't want to dabble in are crafting professions. If you're gonna make, say, a Droid Engineer, make a Master Droid Engineer. You won't be able to compete if you don't. You'll still have enough skill points to master another tree (I think the limit is 2 1/2), but if you're going to make a crafter, you wouldn't benefit much from it if you did it half-assed.

As for "fun"...That's a whole other thing entirely. Right now, I think the players who get the most "fun" out of their characters are those involved in trade and crafting. Combat, the Galactic Civil War, killing Rebels? Not so much. Even if I could wipe out an entire city, I'd give it a "Meh".

Jump to Lightspeed seems to add a whole new dimension though...??

[geldonyetich]

An effective trolling.  Well done, Windupathiest.

Honestly, guys, you really believed somebody would quit WoW for Ultima Online?   I'll buy getting bored of WoW and quitting - even the best game can't teach you enough to stay infinitely enjoyable.  It's just that "going over ot Ultima Online" thing afterwards thing...

It's like saying you've traded in your Lamborghini because the Pinto in the back of the lot with the blown tire and five bullet holes across the windshield just has charm.  Nostalgia should not be able to adequately cover the deficiency involved.   They're putting NINJAS in the next expansion, for cripes sake.

But yes, if he were serious, good advice was offered here.   SWG is very much 3D Ultima Online on steroids with Star Wars dressing in many ways.    If it's an Ultima Online esque crafting vibe you seek, either SWG or A Tale In The Desert are good choices.

[Alkiera]

WindupAtheist had been a major proponent of UO since he showed up here, Geldon.  In fact, I believe he left UO to play WoW.

So leaving WoW to go back to UO isn't a terribly unbelievable statement, coming from him.

Alkiera

[geldonyetich]

[snips the part that I accidently accidently pasted from Microsoft Word]

Well, I guess I shouldn't underestimate the power of familiarity.   One thing that Raph brings up in his Theory of Fun book is that people resist change, after they've found a good niche.  I guess, under that perspective, I could believe somebody wanting to drop a hot title like WoW for their old stomping grounds of UO.   I would be lying to say I was immune to this.

Though I will say that it's probably time to move on.  Particularly with rumors of Ultima Online's emmenant cancelation (perhaps that topic should be a separate thread).      If you've really groked the concepts of Ultima Online and are looking for more, Star Wars Galaxies is probably the best choice.   A Tale From the Desert is good too, but the community involvement required to get ahead in that game is somewhat incompatible with my own introverted manner.   (The game won't have Geldonyetich in it - score another point for ATITD!)

[Shockeye]

I could believe somebody wanting to drop a hot title like WoW for their old stomping grounds of UO.

It isn't a "hot title" to him. To most of the drooling masses out there it may be a "hot title", youself included, but to others it is just more of the same and not worth continuing to play. Am I one of those drooling masses? Yes. Unfortunately, I don't have time to play all the WoW I would like to.

[sidereal]

What the hell else am I supposed to do with all that saliva in my mouth?!

[Calantus]

You could spit it out. Sports stars do it all the time on TV so it's not rude like your mother said.

[WindupAtheist]

An effective trolling.  Well done, Windupathiest.

When I troll, you'll bloody well know it.

Honestly, guys, you really believed somebody would quit WoW for Ultima Online?

I mean yeah guys, come on!  WoW has shiny graphics and night elf titties!  You really think anyone would give all that up just to get away from OMG DING and the horribly repetitive gameplay?

I'll buy getting bored of WoW and quitting - even the best game can't teach you enough to stay infinitely enjoyable.  It's just that "going over ot Ultima Online" thing afterwards thing...

I logged into UO, found an open patch of land, and custom-built my own house from scratch last night.  If I had been playing WoW... what?  I might have dinged again?

It's like saying you've traded in your Lamborghini because the Pinto in the back of the lot with the blown tire and five bullet holes across the windshield just has charm.  Nostalgia should not be able to adequately cover the deficiency involved.   They're putting NINJAS in the next expansion, for cripes sake.

Blah blah blah, OMG UO GRAFIX SUXOR, yeah we know.  Too bad it's one of the very few games that actually feels like a game and not a university study on OCD.  If WoW added custom (or any) housing tomorrow, you'd shriek that it was the greatest thing ever.

But yes, if he were serious, good advice was offered here.   SWG is very much 3D Ultima Online on steroids with Star Wars dressing in many ways.    If it's an Ultima Online esque crafting vibe you seek, either SWG or A Tale In The Desert are good choices.

You've managed to play a level-grind game for more than a month without going "Holy fuck, this got old."  Hence you are the devil, and your advice is suspect.

[Sable Blaze]

I like it when folks start getting all bent out of shape over "repetitive gameplay." Games by nature tend to be repetitive. What might be more accurate is stating it's too repetitive for one's tastes.

MMRPGs are more repetitive than most. That's the nature of the genre as it is now. However, they are good places to get together with diverse friends and do...well...stuff. What that stuff is depends on the gamers. I happen to prefer fantasy to most other genres, so that's where I"m at.

All the MMRPGs I've played had their grind natures. EQlive, EQOA, EQ2, AO, CoH, WoW, AC1, AC2, DAoC, and we'll even throw in some dabbling in NWN in persistant worlds/campaigns. I think that about covers it. Some of these I had fun with. Some I could NOT tolerate more than a few days or weeks. The reasons varied.

I don't think I've ever quit a MMRPG because it's too grindy. I usually quit because of annoyance at game mechanics or a poor community. I'm a long RPG fan, so I'm used to a degree of grind. Most console RPGs have an element of grinding up the party before you can take on more advanced areas.

I think EQlive was the worst in that regard. I quit that game mostly because of what I regarded as a terminal case of balance-block on SOE's part. I wasn't having fun since I had no real function in game. So I quit.

I've not been a fan of the virtual world as opposed to just a game. Players with too much time on their hands and no direction are what usually cause a poor community or one in steep decline. Idiots are no fun to play with.

I ignored UO becuase the game was essentially a cesspool of mendaciousness and stupidity. That was the reputation the game had. We all know why. I wasn't about to touch it even for money. SWG has a bad reputation for truly lousy gameplay mechanics. Again, I wouldn't touch this.

WoW and CoH, however, are fun. Fun enough to keep my attention and the communities both have developed are idiot-free enough to make playing with your fellow subscribers tolerable. CoH might be a bit too simplistic for true long-term interest, but it IS fun. WoW has serious balance issues, but the game still works well enough that I do have fun with friends...even as a warrior.

That's the view from here.

[Shockeye]

People who enjoy the grind knowing it's a grind are people who enjoy wasting time. That's the only thing I can come up with to explain why people continue to grind away while knowing the whole time it is a grind.

[Zane0]

It's not a grind when you're having fun.

[Jayce]

It's not a grind when you're having fun.

That reminds me of "It's not braggin if you really done it".

And it's the same thing really - it's still bragging, but that's ok.  It's still grinding, but that's ok.

The fact that thousands of people have paid (millions if you count Korean MMOGs) means that grindage either really IS fun (gasp!) or that people are willing to put in long hours for a perceived payoff.  I suspect it's a little of both.

Hell, the grind is the only thing that gives me faith in this generation.  If some of us are willing to catass for teh ubar, at least some of us are goal-oriented and don't mind hard work.

[geldonyetich]

You've managed to play a level-grind game for more than a month without going "Holy fuck, this got old." Hence you are the devil, and your advice is suspect.

The nice thing about calling yourself an atheist is I don't have to take your devil insinuations seriously.

Actually, I've transcended the grind somewhat.   I reached a level of being so burned out and repeatedly bored of Yet Another MMORPG having a unnecessarily long grind attached to it that I actually told myself, "Well, guess I'm going to have to learn to love the grind if I ever want to enjoy a MMORPG ever again."   Thus, I ended up enjoying Final Fantasy XI a lot, delightfully mad I was.

That said, it does come down to this: The Grind in itself is a concept that needs to be better fleshed out in order to understand why it generates pain.     It's not the fact that a MMORPG has a treadmill that causes the pain, but rather when that treadmill is associated with a repetitive act which you've long grown bored with.   Raph Koster's Theory of Fun would dictate the reason why you've become bored of it is because it has nothing left to teach you, even on a motor skill level.

My advice to you is this: If you don't like World of Warcraft, fine.   But you'll likely not find your boredom alleviated by returning to a game you were already bored of.   Ultima Online, for all it's virtual world dynamics, is nonetheless quite finite and spent for the vast majority of us.   Personally, were I in your shoes I would consider trying a different class in World of Warcraft, since with few exceptions they all play quite a bit differently.

[MrHat]

Hell, the grind is the only thing that gives me faith in this generation.  If some of us are willing to catass for teh ubar, at least some of us are goal-oriented and don't mind hard work.

Hard work?

[geldonyetich]

Agreed, when a game becomes "hard work" to you, you might want to take a break.   The Achiever mindset is a false one in a virtual environment.   Play a game because it's fun, not because you enjoy lording imaginary power around.

[WindupAtheist]

It's not the fact that a MMORPG has a treadmill that causes the pain, but rather when that treadmill is associated with a repetitive act which you've long grown bored with.   Raph Koster's Theory of Fun would dictate the reason why you've become bored of it is because it has nothing left to teach you, even on a motor skill level.

When I was level 5 they wanted me to kill a dozen or so kobolds.  When I was level 15 it became gnolls.  At level 25 it became orcs.  The names and scenery kept changing, but I had basically used up the content.

I refuse to play any game as if it were work, and I like "wasting" my time on goofy shit.  In five years I've never had more than one character, I've never been more than 3xGM, I've never had more than one million gold, and I've never had a house larger than my current 9x12.  Hell, it took me two years to get any house at all, and I never even cast recall for my first six months just because it felt gimpy to me.

But I like tinkering with my little house, I joined a good guild, I've re-skilled my character so many times it's absurd, and I'm training myself a pet mongbat as a varmint-killer just for the hell of it.

My advice to you is this: If you don't like World of Warcraft, fine.   But you'll likely not find your boredom alleviated by returning to a game you were already bored of.   Ultima Online, for all it's virtual world dynamics, is nonetheless quite finite and spent for the vast majority of us.  

Over the last five years, my UO account has only been active maybe 75% of the time.  I'd get bored, take a month off, then get the urge to return.  An MMOG doesn't need to keep you entertained seven days a week until the end of eternity in order to be good.

Personally, were I in your shoes I would consider trying a different class in World of Warcraft, since with few exceptions they all play quite a bit differently.

Meh.

[Murgos]

Is EA paying you?  You do realize that 90% of the people on this board have played UO right?

[WindupAtheist]

If EA were paying me, they'd make me post here 18 hours per day and beat me when my postcount wasn't high enough, and then forget to pay me anyway.

I just want a game where I can buy a horse on the first day, okay developers?  I'll settle for that.  Please don't take every single moderately interesting thing and make it require grinding.