repetitive
Latest
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Death to the warehouse map!
If you've played City of Heroes from levels 1 to anything, you already know the map I'm talking about. The more levels you've been through, the more you've seen it. Heck, you probably knew exactly what map I was talking about just from the subject line, because... well, it's the warehouse map. As I was thinking about this week's column, I was trying to figure out why it is that City of Heroes gets criticized as often as it does for being "repetitive." I'd gladly concede the point, but the follow-up question becomes, well, what's so inherently different between the gameplay here as opposed to World of Warcraft, or EverQuest II, or Lord of the Rings Online, or even Dungeons and Dragons Online? How is killing X of critter Y for questgiver Z in any way less repetitive than punching the Fifth Column around for the hundredth time? But with the recent addition of Melissa "War Witch" Bianco as lead designer, with her promises of "more content," I formed at least part of an idea of why that pointless accusation will not go away. And I believe the blame can be laid squarely at the feet of that stupid warehouse map.
Disguising the grind
Believe it or not, grind is an essential part of an MMO and we might be pretty lost without it. Repetitive content is the cornerstone of the MMO genre but it's not all just smacking monsters over the head for hours on end or completing yet another "kill ten rats" quest. The repetitive elements in an MMO give us predictable gameplay in a form we can digest. We don't feel lost when we pick up a quest because it uses similar mechanics to previous quests we've done. From a development standpoint, the amount of time it takes to create new and unique gameplay for an MMO is quite large and it's just not feasible to churn out unique gameplay with every new piece of content. Instead, developers are forced to re-use the same gameplay mechanics over and over again. So if we genuinely appreciate predictable, repetitive gameplay and it's not feasible to do otherwise, why are we always so up-in-arms about the evils of grinding? In this probative opinion piece, I look at why we need repetitive gameplay in MMOs and the various ways developers disguise grind to keep the game entertaining. Update: Link to page 2 fixed. Thanks Brian!
Disguising the grind, part 2
Other quests may require you to kill a named monster but to get to him you have to go through several passageways full of other monsters. The core idea here is pretty solid -- the quest isn't the mundane task of running from A to B or killing some monsters. The quest has another goal entirely and the mundane tasks of travel and killing monsters are challenges to overcome in accomplishing that goal.
The Daily Grind: What do you think of daily quests?
One of the mechanics added to World of Warcraft in Burning Crusade is the presence of repeatable daily quests. Before Wrath of the Lich King came out, many players at endgame made a great deal of gold that way. However, now that players are earning experience again, it's more of a faction or achievement grind, and less of a money-earner than before. (The mechanic being that if you are not earning experience, you get an amount of extra gold to off-set the "lost" xp.) Some players absolutely love dailies, in that they're a nice easy way to make a few gold, get a bit of extra experience, and some reputation. Other players absolutely abhor them, citing repetitive daily quests as being representative of all that's wrong with many MMOs - people doing the same thing over and over and over and being okay with that.This morning, as we hunt down our fourth Crystalsong Carrot, we thought we'd ask you - what's your opinion of daily repeatable quests? Do you prefer it as a form of experience or faction grinding? Do you think they're too boring? Should more games employ them, or should they be removed altogether?
The Daily Grind: The daily grind
At this point, it's still pretty much assured that if you're playing an MMO, you're going to be grinding a bit. Sure, it's possible that there are MMOs out there where you can get all the way to the highest level just by doing quests, or by running with groups, or even by doing PvP. But there are still times in every game where we've done all the quests for a certain level, there's no one around to group with, and we're just PvP'd out. For those times, there's the regular old grind.So what's makes a good grind? For me, a great grind has to have three different things: 1) It can't tax my mind too much-- I'd like to have a movie or some music going on in the background, or be able to multitask in some way (in fact, I'm writing this post while mining in EVE). 2) It has to be worthwhile-- I need to be earning gold, or XP, or collecting something while I do it, or else there's no reason to grind at all. And 3) it has to be fun. Even in EVE, I have a good time browsing the market and dreaming of ship upgrades while mining, and it's broken up just at the right time by an NPC pirate arriving to become drone fodder. There's nothing wrong with a little mindless fun, but the fun has to be there all the same.Did I miss anything? What makes a great grind? And what's the best game/place/situation to do some great MMO grinding in?
