10-02-2009, 12:11 PM
Back in the days of EQ, I decided that grinding was the worst thing ever. There you are, killing NPC after NPC for no reason other than loot and levels. That was your whole EQ life (or would be if you weren't on a PvP server). Just grinding for XP.
WOW came out and I thought it was great. Finally, I can follow quests and feel like I'm doing something other than killing mobs for no reason. Most other games followed the WOW model.
Now I feel like I'm doing a 180 on my position. Questing is ultimately the same thing as grinding, but with extra steps.
e.g., what's the difference in killing 10 mobs for 100 xp each with a quest turnin for 1000 xp, versus simply killing 10 mobs for 200 xp each? Sure, maybe the quest says, "Blah blah rats eating my crops, bring me 10 rat tails, etc etc" but it's really just the same thing with an extra step: you're out there grinding mobs for loot and levels one way or the other. Quests fail to be satisfying because the text of the quest is meaningless and therefore it just amounts to directed grinding.
Quests, in fact, add an extra barrier, in that if you and I aren't on the same step of the same quest then one of us is going to have to get the other caught up, which can be an extensive process of repeating less than ideal content. With grinding, there's no worries. You just join me and away we go.
I think POTBS and Champions Online drove this home particularly well. POTBS had quests but some of the best leveling was just in grinding on the open sea. And while grinding, anyone could join you, even if the level difference was extreme, and still contribute and not worry about who was on what quest.
Champions Online went the exact opposite direction, where the whole game is quest driven and "grinding" isn't really supported. You can never really play with anyone you know unless you made a point of staying in synch.
So maybe the real question is, "Do we need those quest turnins for some psychological reason?" Does that chunk of XP/loot bring some sense of satisfaction that you wouldn't have gotten had the same rewards and loot been offered up during the course of the grind?
If so, maybe all we really need are Warhammer style "kill quests", where the game basically tracks how many rats you kill and when you decide to go in to town, you talk to the guy and he says, "Congratulations, you killed 231 rats, here's 231 rats worth of quest reward." No need to actually pick up the quest and kill a certain number and trying to keep everyone in synch.
WOW came out and I thought it was great. Finally, I can follow quests and feel like I'm doing something other than killing mobs for no reason. Most other games followed the WOW model.
Now I feel like I'm doing a 180 on my position. Questing is ultimately the same thing as grinding, but with extra steps.
e.g., what's the difference in killing 10 mobs for 100 xp each with a quest turnin for 1000 xp, versus simply killing 10 mobs for 200 xp each? Sure, maybe the quest says, "Blah blah rats eating my crops, bring me 10 rat tails, etc etc" but it's really just the same thing with an extra step: you're out there grinding mobs for loot and levels one way or the other. Quests fail to be satisfying because the text of the quest is meaningless and therefore it just amounts to directed grinding.
Quests, in fact, add an extra barrier, in that if you and I aren't on the same step of the same quest then one of us is going to have to get the other caught up, which can be an extensive process of repeating less than ideal content. With grinding, there's no worries. You just join me and away we go.
I think POTBS and Champions Online drove this home particularly well. POTBS had quests but some of the best leveling was just in grinding on the open sea. And while grinding, anyone could join you, even if the level difference was extreme, and still contribute and not worry about who was on what quest.
Champions Online went the exact opposite direction, where the whole game is quest driven and "grinding" isn't really supported. You can never really play with anyone you know unless you made a point of staying in synch.
So maybe the real question is, "Do we need those quest turnins for some psychological reason?" Does that chunk of XP/loot bring some sense of satisfaction that you wouldn't have gotten had the same rewards and loot been offered up during the course of the grind?
If so, maybe all we really need are Warhammer style "kill quests", where the game basically tracks how many rats you kill and when you decide to go in to town, you talk to the guy and he says, "Congratulations, you killed 231 rats, here's 231 rats worth of quest reward." No need to actually pick up the quest and kill a certain number and trying to keep everyone in synch.