Phantasy Star Universe, Yogurting and the endless grind phenomenon

[Falconeer]

Today Phantasy Star Universe finally got released in North America (later this month in Europe). I say "finally" as I was charmed by Phantasy Star back in the 80s when I stumbled on PS2 (ugh, Phantasy Star 2) and decided I was in love with CRPG. Lots of things happened since then, but my platonic love didn't end. I purchased the rehash for Nintendo DS two years ago just to know some Phantasy Star was always in my pocket.
Of course I tried to play Phantasy Star Online but my Dreamcast couldn't connect no matter what so I had to wait for the PC version to live the thrill of the online Phantasy. Anyway, enough reminiscing:

The thing is looks like Phantasy Star Universe is a succesful game in Asia and its gameplay is JUST grind. No really. I tried it, betatested it. Liked it too but I played knowing it couldn't be serious, as the game was just "instance hack 'n slash with a group".
I was wondering today: "How can a game like PSU be released in 2006? Who could want to play this? (talking about the multiplayer part, as the offline part is just another japanese cRPG I guess). Someone could answer that only asians actually like to play those kind of games, but is it really true?

Honestly, I think that besides Ultima Online, every other MMO is just a rehash of Diablo (which was a rehash of Space Invaders). While UO and virtual worlds should have been the launchpads for the technology capable of hosting thousands of players in the same environment, something went wrong and the whole idea od massive multiplayer games fell in the wrong hands (McQuaid?  ).

I think that, after all, western players loves to grind EXACTLY like the eastern ones. The difference doesn't lie in how much grind you have to sustain, but in smaller details, like style, interface, length of fights, frequency of equipment upgrades, high avatar customizability and so on. WoW is just grind from level 1 up to level "oh my eyes are bleeding" but no one seems to notice, "instance grind" if I may add. Quests? Make me laugh. Lore? If you say so. Diablo and EverQuest, two of the most succesful "online" game ever, proved that online players just need an entertaining grind. WoW sealed the concept on granite.

All this stuff came to my mind today while I was reading about PSU and thinking about buying it. Then I tried (finally) Yogurting and loved it (if anyone wants to try it, I spent 3 hours figuring out how to create an account on the japanese site, but now it works and I can give out the info/secret). Yogurting it's just Diablo + Anime + the illusion of a persistent world. In both cases I thought "no I can't buy PSU.. it's just grind... it's boring.. nah it's the usual korean thing", but after a while I thought what I just wrote: our MMOs are as grindful as theirs, plus we usually don't have a single inch of their PvP features.
Still, we are snob enough to think asian games are not worth it: "the grind... the grind.."

I just realized today that beside UO and EVE, every other MMO to me is not worth it, no matter the country of origin. They are all wasted chances and they are all Space Invaders with loot. The technology that 10 years ago opened the door to virtual worlds, virtual gaming worlds, has been corrupted to produce mass-manufactured massive multiplayer robots. I won't look down at asian mmorpgs anymore, no. I will look down at every diku mmoprpg now, as from the higher stand where "worldly" and "open" games are, all the EverQuest clones looks tiny and miserable.

Now, if you excuse me, while I'm waiting for the next UO, I'll go out to buy Phantasy Star Universe. Let's hope the sounds are catchy enough, the spells flashy enough and the weapons satisfying enough to entertain me at least for a couple of weeks.


P.S: Point of the post was to say that Phantasy Star Universe is out today, and it is cool too. Not so much. Just like any other MMO these days.




Oops, I dropped a Yogurting...

[geldonyetich]

Ah, the grind.  The evil, evil grind.  How dare it ruin yet another game?

...

Actually, I've revised my stance on the grind a bit.  I've made progress.  I no longer consider the grind the villain I once did.

Don't get me wrong - it's not that the grind isn't vileness personified.  Oh, yes indeed, the very presense of the grind is the essense of not fun.  Given that one plays a game for fun, the grind is the opposite reason you play games.

What I've discovered is this: The grind only occurs in the absense of fun.  You can have the longest leveling treadmill in the world, and it'd still be a worthwhile endeavor so long as you're still having fun.

So, what generates the fun?  The blanket answer would be that the answer is subjective, but I'm going to out on a limb here and say it's the unique gameplay offered by the particular game.  Further, if you go down that path long enough, you'll see why clones generate grindy feelings.  You've already bored of the game before you even started playing it, since it was just a clone of something you played.

Phantasy Star Universe, despite the presense of levels and experience bars, plays nothing like World of Warcraft or EverQuest.  The barrier between you and the grind, the gameplay itself, is something entirely different.  Once you bore of the gameplay, then you'll see the grind.  At this point, I recommend stop playing the game or at least take a break, because the real villain is not the grind but rather that you're allowing an achievement based treadmill to trick you to play a game you no longer find fun.  If you remember this little mantra, you'll be forever innoculated against the grind: "Gaining levels does not make an unfun game fun."

Yogurting I never heard of, but looks like a Eastern RPG sort of in the style of the original Phantasy Star Online, made some 5 years prior.  Aw, look at the kawaii school girl uniform.

[Trippy]

P.S: Point of the post was to say that Phantasy Star Universe is out today, and it is cool too. Not so much. Just like any other MMO these days.

PSU came out last week and we've been discussing it here:

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=8411.0

[Falconeer]

My fault as usual :)
Problem is I only read the MMOG board here and PSU is 51% MMO after all.

Luckily there's a little more on my post beside the line you quoted.

[schild]

PSU is more like 10% MMOG.

And you know it. Just look at the strategy guide.

[Margalis]

I like PSU in that I can login, be in a mission in 5 minutes and be done with it in 20. It's no virtual world that I want to spend a ton of time in, just a fun diversion.

If I'm going to play a MMORPG I'd want to either play a virtual world or something like PSU which doesn't even bother with the trappings of a world. I can leave my room and appear on another planet. Makes no fucking sense but that's a lot better than waiting half an hour for some space barge to pick me up.

What you see is a sliding scale, with a game like Eve on one hand, PSU and Guild wars on the other, and WOW in between.

Edit: Levelling and grinding are different. "The grind" is only bad when you are sitting there thinking "god damn it, I have to kill another 1000 slimes" or "time to do Raid X for the 500th time." If you are having fun doing it it isn't a grind.

TMNT the arcade game was the same basic thing over and over again, but that was fun. Most games are about repitition to same degree. The problem in a lot of MMORPGs is you are sitting there knowing you've mastered what you are doing now and WANT to move on but can't. It is a pacing problem. but MMORPGs are not alone in that they can have pacing problems - it's just that the business model encourages devs to purposely introduce them.

[Signe]

It sucks.  My fingers can't work it.   

[Falconeer]

It sucks.  My fingers can't work it.   

Come to Yogurting Signe.
You haven't really sucked in your life until you got steamed by a boss giant box and his minions regular boxes (while wearing a sailor uniform)

[Signe]

No! 

[stray]

If Falconner only reads the MMO section of this site, then he can't be trusted about anything. Even MMO's.

[Falconeer]

If Falconner only reads the MMO section of this site, then he can't be trusted about anything. Even MMO's.

I wasn't trusted anyway. And for good reasons. My english is broken, so basically: Viklas.

[schild]

Well, the post above this one is pretty much a "win."

[stray]

His English is fine, but I still don't understand.

[Slyfeind]

I'd play Yogurting if I could be one of those cubes. They look awesome.

[geldonyetich]

I think they're cute, yet belligerent, blue cardboard boxes.

They might not seem too scary, but after a long day of export invoice work, they're terrifying.

[Morfiend]

You are all broken!

[geldonyetich]

I asked my doctor to fix me, but he just looks at me funny and hands me a family planning brochure.

[raydeen]

Grind. Yes, they all have it. But how much interactivity is involved is what keeps the game fresh for me. PSU and City of Heroes are the top two 'interactive' games IMO that still adhere to the DIKU philosophy. Both games are based on levels and stats and enhancements and buffs, blah, blah, blah. But both games are intereactive enough on a combat level that they never become a hit 'attack' key and go get a sandwich. Even Wow to an extent is immersive in that you can do some maneuvering about and get the impression that the combat is somewhat real-time. PSU to me feels like a cross between Soul Calibur and Guild Wars. I like being able to initiate an attack and then do some cool combos and such. I like the fact that there's a tiny bit of strategy thrown in with the random number generator.

[Rhonstet]

Having played PSU, I cannot argue that it is, a the french say, 'le Grinde Fantastique'.

My issue with it isn't that its grindy: its that there is no variety.  Diablo had a successful grind because the maps were either dynamically generated or there were so many of them that each game was different (I don't remember or care which). 

Phantasy Star Universe has _ONE_ quest zone for 1st level players, and _ONE_ quest zone for 5th level players.   The number of zones starts to open up after level 15, but even then.

Diablo at least gave you the illusion that the world was large and varied.  PSU can't even do that.

[geldonyetich]

I will say that the variety of zones has increased since Phantasy Star Online, where it was four zones (pre-expansion).  Having played through the entire single player campaign now, I've seen somewhere between a dozen or two different environment sets for the mission maps (although a few were just frozen or burning versions of other tile sets).

Although I wonder at times if perhaps the attention to detail in the foe behavior and zone decor might have been better in the first game.  I was never really blown away like I was the first time I stepped into the mechanical-themed third zone in PSO.  There are some beautiful environments in both games, but I suspect Sonic Team had some better art talent working for them in the first.

Anyway, my point I was trying to make back in message #2 on this thread is basically that Phantasy Star Online is not your typical Autoattack+Hotkey based combat and that makes it much more enjoyable for somebody who has burned out on that before.  It's really much more arcadey.  If one can snap themselves out of their old habits and actually try dodging the enemy attacks, they'll discover an exciting game here they may have totally missed on first impressions.

[Fabricated]

The only thing that made Yogurting great was the weird promotional video of animated characters from the game dancing to annoyingly catchy K-pop.

[Kail]

My issue with it isn't that its grindy: its that there is no variety.  Diablo had a successful grind because the maps were either dynamically generated or there were so many of them that each game was different (I don't remember or care which). 

I'd say that kind of alleviates some of the grind for me (or at least, it did in the original PSO, I haven't tried PSU yet).  The whole game is the same, so there really isn't this push to grind to some mythical endgame where everything will suddenly become fun.  Even in WoW I feel that a lot: a strong pressure to get my lowbie characters to forty for their major upgrades, a strong pressure to get my mid-level players to sixty for their gear.  I didn't really get that in PSO; either the game was fun or it wasn't, but it wasn't going to become MORE fun after grinding to the level cap.

[Falconeer]

The only thing that made Yogurting great was the weird promotional video of animated characters from the game dancing to annoyingly catchy K-pop.

I strongly disgaree. Take a loook at this.

[schild]

Wow. Are they retarded? And I don't mean the colloqualism, I mean, is that commentary about highschoolers from the animators? Seriously, that was wretched.

[Chenghiz]

Wow. Are they retarded? And I don't mean the colloqualism, I mean, is that commentary about highschoolers from the animators? Seriously, that was wretched.

For what it's worth, I think that beats Vanguard.

[SnakeCharmer]

Yanno...I see those screenshots, and the first thing that comes to mind is child porn and pedofelia.

[Falconeer]

Yanno...I see those screenshots, and the first thing that comes to mind is child porn and pedofelia.

Dure.. you are sick

[geldonyetich]

Aggressive cardboard box on sailor scout action.

[SnakeCharmer]

Yanno...I see those screenshots, and the first thing that comes to mind is child porn and pedofelia.

Dure.. you are sick

I'm not the one playing a game based on what looks to be a teenage girl wearing thigh highs and getting yogurted or whatever. 

[tazelbain]

This thread continues to deliver the comedy.

[Falconeer]

Yanno...I see those screenshots, and the first thing that comes to mind is child porn and pedofelia.

Dure.. you are sick

I'm not the one playing a game based on what looks to be a teenage girl wearing thigh highs and getting yogurted or whatever. 

Yeah, I know. Hence the italic you.