Do we have any reason to believe that 2.0 will succeed?Follow

A quest is a quest is a quest Hyrist. You're splitting hairs and getting way technical when at the core, they're the same thing. You search for something and retrieve it, kill it, repair it, bandage it... what have you. Varying degrees and quantities, but it's all the same sh*t. The only difference between a levequest and a quest you might do in another game is instead of talking to an NPC who sends you on your way with a story, you toss a nifty item that looks like a playing card at a talking rock.

I'd like to point out that many MMO's have taken quite a variety of approaches to grinding. However one thing remains the same with most successful MMORPG's; they all have some sort of grind to separate the new players with existing ones. It creates a sort of balance in the game. If you go to wikipedia and search for 'Grinding (video gaming)', there is a great list on that page about the different approaches recent MMO's have taken. I was quite surprised at the variety of methods implemented.

So back on the topic of will 2.0 succeed? I think it largely depends on how the fan-base receives the grind method put into place. It seems they are going more of a "quest grind" according to a recent interview, which bears some similarities to how WoW played.

People dislike the grind because by definition a grind is something to dislike. This only gets confusing when you have players claiming that they "like the grind." Nobody likes the grind... that's what makes it a grind. If you like it, then by definition it's not a grind. It's subjective in a sense, but as I alluded earlier (maybe in another thread?) just because it's subjective doesn't mean there isn't an objectively measurable general preference.

Grinding is by definition an almost purely extrinsically motivated behavior. It's work. People don't generally like something that is strictly work, but they do it anyway to reap the rewards. It's by no means essential that games have these elements; it's just the trend in MMOs. It appeals to players who are highly dedicated to reaching goals even if it requires a compulsory and masochistic repetition of behavior. As I used to say, it's like being conditioned to want to work on a factory line, without the pay.

This was actually the point of my post-- if the time sink is entertaining, then it isn't a grind. Whether or not something is a grind is not a function of the intention of the feature, but whether or not the player's motivation reaches a threshold. Obviously this is a semantic point, but it's based on an important underlying conceptual point. There is no value in trying to define a grind as a "time sink," because whether or not something is a time sink depends more upon intra-player factors than on the intentions of the designers. Everything in a game takes time, whether or not that time is a "sink" depends upon whether the player perceives the time as wasted, i.e., boring. While certainly it's not hard to come up with features that the vast majority of players would consider a time sink, what you're ultimately talking about in these instances is an extrinsic motivator and work, which may be incidentally entertaining or "entertaining" in a loose sense, but are not fun in and of themselves.

There are decades of research detailing the psychology of fun and games, and you won't find the term "time sink" anywhere outside of video games, because it's a colloquial term for a phenomenon that is already well-understood... but you will find the term "grind." The term is often commonly misused in discussions about video games due to misunderstanding the finer points of it, so I was just trying to clarify.

Anyway, long story short, a grind is by definition a work-like perception of the player. While designers can and often do intentionally attempt to create that grind--for better or worse--a grind is a subjective player state, not an objective design feature.

Only if you're not enjoying it. I agree with Kachi's definition of a grind in that its subjective however majority wins and if majority thinks 'xp camping' is a grind then it becomes defined as such. IMO questing is as much a grind and can get boring fast. I think the entire MMO genre needs a facelift.

There isn't a problem with it because it's all encompassing. It doesn't matter what it is that you are doing, for how long or how much you enjoy it; if it's repetitive then it's grind. 500 killing blows with a weaponskill? Grind. Kill 3 rats for a levequest? Grind. Yesterday, firesday, your name day, your birthday... grind.


Well, I hope you do take my losing interest in this nonsensical argument about such a simple concept as intending to finish it

Definitely.

(Btw: What a useless, vain, and utterly pointless debate. Even considering this is a game forum. Boring. Where's the drama?)

You had me at Purple Text. The eyes bleed.

Edited, Aug 13th 2012 10:28am by Louiscool

I can see you didn't quite get my point, so let me speak more plainly.

By your definition, everything which constitutes the game is a grind. As you just said, everything is essentially repetitive. Therefor, everything is a grind. If a word can be applied to everything, it defines nothing, and so, becomes useless.

The definition you provided isn't what people generally mean when they refer to the grind, but even if it was, it would be a meaningless thing to say.

As for the subject being boring, it's not to me. As I've gathered in my tenure here, amusement of the self is the sole purpose of the majority of threads. It's better than grinding XP :p

I didn't read beyond the second sentence of you previous post. I stopped reading here on this one. I am not interested in your point. Is that spoken plainly enough for you?

I hate your face

How many days till first 2.0 gameplay videos? I feel like this forum could use some new stuff do discuss :p

I was being serious btw :p I know its sometimes this week but not sure when

Oh no, this is the typical "I'm bored at work, let's start an argument" thing for me.

Personally I'm just antsy about Gamescon (I'm also watching the LoL tournaments.) and the Ren Faire meet-up this weekend on my end.

This crap here on the forums? Passes the time until the more exciting things. Work can be quite dull.



Edited, Aug 13th 2012 6:15pm by Hyrist

Quoting yourself out of context of your entire post trends matters little - I asked you a question and if you cannot bother to reply, then what is your purpose here?

You cease to discuss and begin to monologue, Filth. This is a bad sign.

Now I will state my question a third time:

What are you looking for in an MMO?

Irrelevant to the question I asked Filth - which takes priority over all else.

If you can't be bothered to explain your vision, I can't be bothered to respect it.

So please do explain thoroughly what your ideal for an MMO is. What are you waiting on?

By the way "Not Necessarily." Is not a personal disagreement, it's a devils advocate disagreement used to debate the topic in academia, it shows little personal investment in the topic itself.

Edited, Aug 13th 2012 7:59pm by Hyrist

^^^ No. We would have to sacrifice a lot of gameplay for "Immersion"

No doubt. Now the question is when the devs/editors are going to figure it out, already figured it out. Because between the time you start working on a game and the moment its released there is what, 6+ years (?) passing by?

I wonder if next possible big hits such as ArcheAge or EQNext are any different from what we know

No need to be pissy about it. This is a forum. Just because I am responding to you does not mean I am talking solely to you. If that were my concern, I would have PM'd you. For that matter, I am not particularly concerned with whether anyone finds it interesting. I'm not a mind-reader, so maybe they will, and maybe they won't. I'm quite sure that 99% of the content of this forum is posted with the same attitude.

I also notice that on the same page you claim that you didn't read past my second sentence, you seem upset that others didn't read your first few sentences.

Anyway, I've been around Zam more than long enough to know that people come here to piss away their time--same reason I'm here now--but I'm not feeling particularly apologetic if others find me uninteresting. The best way to not get a response from me is to not respond to me. If you can't resist the urge to get the last word in, then congratulations on becoming my next reluctant debate partner.

Let's establish further context here. During our discourse, I took the impression that you have a negative light of FFXIV's Grind systems (clarification for you). In particular, Levequests.

Yet, you depicted a game outside of an MMO, League of Legends, as a positive grind. When I said, and I quote:



To clarify that statement further for you: You were saying a grind isn't a bad thing when the gameplay is enjoyable. Let me pull the quote where you implied that:



But instead of arguing the mechanics of what could turn FFXIV's grind, which you referr as negative, to something more enjoyable like your LoL, we got tied up in semantics. Not uncommon when you're using multi-use words.

But the initial question here still stands. In your last paragraph in that initial post you stated:



And I agree with the sentiment. But stating as such does not clarify what makes a content worth repeating - especially on a broad scale.

I enjoy Levequests. I think they get boring after too long because there's not enough randomization in how each particular leve unfolds. At least not after repeating them a few dozen times. But there are 3 regions for each level section (More at 30 when you have the option to do dungeon ones.) So you get rewarded with more variance when you explore.

But you do not. You said it yourself - if you don't enjoy a mechanic it's broken. And while I'd argue that you can never create a mechanic everyone will enjoy, I do believe we should make efforts to design each game function with a wide appeal.

So we get right back to the question I'll still be asking you at every turn: What is it in an MMO you want? - That's the question all feedback should boil down to here. You want something you can repeat an enjoy regardless of the loot. What is it that you enjoy repeating? What things can be added to specific mechanics that would make them more enjoyable for you?

There may be examples in the game that have been implemented since you left that meet them. The rest can be brought to the developer's attentions.

Not everything that is needed can be inferred by going to one grind and saying "This is bad." and going to another grind and saying "This is good." It really even isn't about the examples. It's more about your desires. So, make them clear, and use specifics, rather than base generalizations.

Really? Because you're dancing around the question just fine.

Point of the matter is, you can't even answer a straight question when confronted with one. All you do here is commentate, often to the tone of being off topic. (Reminder, this is the FFXIV forums, this is a FFXIV related thread. All discussions within those two umbrellas is about topic relevant to that.)

Rather than commentating that I am tired of seeing it, I am going to, unceasingly, confront each of your conversations with a question to make it relevant to FFXIV. I'll also make sure to ask you for your personal point of view instead of encouraging that you argue sub-culture slang definitions as if they're definition is doctrine.

How you react will be your choice.

cop-out also cop·out (kpout)
n. Slang
1. A failure to fulfill a commitment or responsibility or to face a difficulty squarely.
2. A person who fails to fulfill a commitment or responsibility.
3. An excuse for inaction or evasion.

Filth...I would have to say you are falling under #3. Your excuse to not answer saying its because you have already explained what you want sometime over the last 2 years buried in all your BS and self glorification...well...is kind of pathetic.

You won't answer simply because you do not want anyone to know what you want. If we did...then we could easily call you out once more and more information about the new version surfaces. If SE comes through with what is on your wish list...you will lose your opportunity to hold court. No more "Look at me...I was right". You will just fade away and hopefully go to some other failed MMO and start over.

ＹＡＹ！☆Ｆｏｒｕｍ　Ｄｒａｍａ☆
Ｓｏｍｅｏｎｅ　ｇｒａｃｅ　ｕｓ　ｗｉｔｈ　ａｎｏｔｈｅｒ　ｒｏｕｎｄ　ｏｆ　ｉｒｒｅｌｅｖａｎｔ　ｄｉｃｔｉｏｎａｒｙ　ｄｅｆｉｎｉｔｉｏｎｓ，　ｓｏ　ｗｅ　ｃａｎ　ｆｉｎａｌｌｙ　ｓｔａｒｔ　ｔｈｅ　ｐａｒｔｙ．

Seriously guys, today may well be the first day in 2 years SE actually provided something better to discuss about than the shape of our own bellybuttons. Relax, chill, enjoy the screenshots, bitch about the texture quality of the grass for a change.

Edited, Aug 15th 2012 5:50pm by Rinsui

Call it what you want to. Why should I go to the trouble of quoting posts I have already made, directly to Hyrist I might add, that already answer his question; especially considering it has nothing to do with the discussion he replied to? I made no commitment to answer the question FYI and honestly, if this question were to be answered in the form of feedback as Hyrist suggests, then he is asking the wrong question anyway.


QFT


The only problem here is that you are trying to impose context to something that has none.

Translation: General statement is general.

The reason I preemptively stated that was because the original statement was a generalization. General statement deserves general response. There is a reason it's called 'generally accepted' definition.


Why is your other hand behind your back?

I'm not sure how or even why a list of things I like in a game would break misconceptions. Again, I'm not going to make another long list of things I need in an MMO to keep me happy, nor will I make another long list of things wrong with or absent from XIV keeping me from enjoying it. No doubt, those lists would be filled with generalities which you seem to have had your fill of.

I will however accept your olive branch and give you this...

In the new footage of gameplay from Gamescom at about :30 into the video a character opens up his character screen and his inventory, he drags and drops items from inventory onto the character window. Now drag and drop has been in games for ages, but I've never seen SE use it and it was sorely needed. One of the bigger gripes I had with 1.0 and consequently, one of the biggest worries I had about 2.0 I think can safely be scratched off the list.

The UI seemed very responsive. I couldn't tell exactly what it was, but the inventory seemed to have smart tabs for organizing your gear. Perhaps some sort of way to equip or swap entire sets of gear quickly will be implemented(or already is), but at the least it looks like you can organize your stash much more effectively. At one point the gear was dropped seemingly randomly over the shadow in the frame and it populated the correct gear slot. A big booster shot of confidence that SE has started to design intuitively. Astronaut leap in the right direction. I was moist.

A specific, non-general example in the context of XIV will have to do for now.

I couldn't care less about how I'm perceived on these boards because haters will hate, but I do give props where due; just not until they're due.

Edited, Aug 15th 2012 8:05pm by FilthMcNasty

SE's generic "We are looking into doing something with [insert game mechanic here]" does nothing for me Hyrist. I have very little faith in words for reasons I have already explained. The actual proof I saw in the game footage from Gamescom is all that I would accept as progress. If Yoshi had come out and stated that you could interact with the interface as I mentioned above, I would not have believed him until I had seen it. Just how it works with me.

I really believe that they have all of the feedback they need regarding the core of the game and what needs to be addressed there. If they keep on considering this feedback in their design decisions like they did in the example above, they may very well have a great game in the making.