MMO Not-RPG

[Liminal Dusk]

I was in an argument with a friend the other day (note that he is a major WoW-addict, while I am an ex-FFXI-addict), and we were arguing the silly argument of "Which is better." (Foolish, I know, but hear me out)

One of the points that kept coming up was "WoW has quests I can do while FFXI doesn't. FFXI is just grinding with people." I respond with "Ummm, I like that, because most of WoWs quests are either errands that asking people to help with will just anger them or are directions to kill something, which is just grinding, but with a little wait in between fights." This leads to the question that the only REAL player-to-player parts OF MMOs is combat, which inevitably leads to variations of Grinding (if you disagree, please, correct, but that's not the point of this thread)

My question is this: If an MMORPG DOES ammount to grinding. Is it possible to develop an engine or game that basically creates a situation like the Elika / Prince relationship in Prince of Persia. Players helping each other even OUT of combat, in a way that actually matters. (I guess that would make it an MMO-action?) Your thoughts?

 

[savandicus]

Not all quests in mmorpgs are just go kill x of y. I'll take an example of a daily quest in wow that involves going to get an item and then jumping on a torpedo and ramming it into a ship, its quite a fun little quest that doesnt involve killing (unless you count killing a ship) And other quests that require you to go talk to x, go use x at location y, go talk to this dude and watch a cutscene. However thats not the reason i dissagree with quests just being grinding. Some quests that are kill x of y because i cant be bothered are pretty much a grind however alot of quests have a self contained plot that are really worth reading and the sad thing is alot of people dont read the quest description and just go do what it says for the xp and reward and that is a grind

Self contained plots are what make wow quests any good and also what makes guild wars quests good aswell. I've played FFXI and i have to say my experience of that is that it was just a grind, and i know people who've played WoW and will have just grinded their way through it.

 

[Syntax Error]

All MMO's (RPG or not) will require you to grind at some point. It's more of a necessity for these types of games rather than poor design choices. For MMO's you have to make content that would last your player base some time until the next big patch, and the easiest way to achieve this is to limit what they can do in the game to stretch its lifespan, which is exactly what the grind aspect is all about. You make in-game goals that would take a very long time to accomplish in comparison to other offline games of the same style.