Originally Posted by Elistan Theocrat

I don't personally view complaints about grind in GW as valid in the slightest.

Originally Posted by Crimson_1190

For some people it is very boring for others....well there are people who enjoy killing everylast thing and get more....m...excited than they should by the flashing lights and leveling theme music.

Originally Posted by Crimson_1190

But that is the point, alot of this is opinion. 300-400 hrs if even true is nothing on my characters.

Originally Posted by Saerden

Noone cares about opinions. The fact that there are 300-4000h between competitive players - plus those who want to be good because of their human skills that they developed spending time (OMG repetitive playing of THE SAME chess pieces EACH time OMG = GRIND) - and a fun competitive game is not valid in the slightest? Right.

If there are at least 10 people in everything that one would call GW community that consider skill unlocks superior to either UAS or conventional leveling / character progressing systems, i have to admit that there are worse "misunderstandings" than MOOIII Daikatana.

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Noone cares about that. This does in no way interfere with competitive play since these games either are not designed for competitve play, or dont allow pvp to begin with.

Originally Posted by Diomedes

I actually believe that this is some sort of lingering effect of the exceedingly heavy influence that D&D has had on the genre. I've played a number of P&P RPGs that are exactly that, Role Playing Games. In order to story tell and play a role, you do not need a mechanism for increasing player power over time. This isn't 100% the same thing, but I would actually point to those old adventure games that have gone away (I still don't know why, I loved them!) such as Space Quest as a good example. In that game, you did actually role play and tell the story of one silly but heroic janitor out to save the galaxy. The game was outstanding, but the game did not focus on combat, and the story would progress after you performed a series of tasks and conversations rather than when your character had built up enough power to demolish an obstacle.

-Diomedes

Originally Posted by Elistan Theocrat

I dont mean to be rude, honestly, but can someone please translate this for me, I've honestly read this 3x and I cant make heads or tails out of what hes trying to say other than he disagrees with my opinion that grind is objective.

Originally Posted by Diomedes

I actually believe that this is some sort of lingering effect of the exceedingly heavy influence that D&D has had on the genre. I've played a number of P&P RPGs that are exactly that, Role Playing Games. In order to story tell and play a role, you do not need a mechanism for increasing player power over time. This isn't 100% the same thing, but I would actually point to those old adventure games that have gone away (I still don't know why, I loved them!) such as Space Quest as a good example. In that game, you did actually role play and tell the story of one silly but heroic janitor out to save the galaxy. The game was outstanding, but the game did not focus on combat, and the story would progress after you performed a series of tasks and conversations rather than when your character had built up enough power to demolish an obstacle.

-Diomedes

Originally Posted by Diomedes

I actually believe that this is some sort of lingering effect of the exceedingly heavy influence that D&D has had on the genre. I've played a number of P&P RPGs that are exactly that, Role Playing Games. In order to story tell and play a role, you do not need a mechanism for increasing player power over time. This isn't 100% the same thing, but I would actually point to those old adventure games that have gone away (I still don't know why, I loved them!) such as Space Quest as a good example. In that game, you did actually role play and tell the story of one silly but heroic janitor out to save the galaxy. The game was outstanding, but the game did not focus on combat, and the story would progress after you performed a series of tasks and conversations rather than when your character had built up enough power to demolish an obstacle.

-Diomedes

Originally Posted by Elistan Theocrat

I think youre more than half right about the D&D comment, or replace that with whatever your p&p game of choice is, Shadowrun, Vampire and its offspring, gurps, whatever. Even so, for SOME players the point of that game is the telling of a story and the playing of a role. For others, they take more pleasure in the advancement of a character. Still others, like many in this and other online games, are pure number crunchers, whos goal is to push the envelope of the rules. So even with the p&p games whats fun (or not grind, if you will) is subjective.

I Loved SpaceQuest, and KingsQuest and such. You could almost lump Myst with that catagory. (hated it, preffered the 7th guest) In a sense they are all adventure games although with different styles, and all tell a story and progress thru events as opposed to "x more monsters to kill".

Lets take a look at the game that really put MMO on the map. EQ. That game was groundbreaking, and while it was tragically flawed in some regards in hindsight, I think its fair to say it has influenced most online RPG's of any type since, either with them borrowing concepts, or avoiding flaws.

I'll try to be brief, but I'd like to go into what addicted me to that game for years. First, there was no storyline, instead you had a huge and continuous (excusing zonelines) world to explore, and almost no linear content. Second, that world was alive. Back in the early days we had some excellent GM's running around invisably, and sometimes visably, making all kind of things happen in game. Events were awesome, as to that point I'd never seen a game that was so socially based and such a living breathing world. Theres more but I dont want to get sidetracked. The point is that for me at least the draw was that I could roleplay a character without linear restraints in this vast and everchanging world.

GW has zero grind by my estimation in comparision to EQ which with the possible exception of the FFonline games is grind king. There were people who tried eq and hated it because of the grind and didnt play it. One of my friends referred to the grind (although we didnt call it that back in the day) as Rat Hunter 3d, because you had to spend some time before you got to move on to beetles and so on. Thoes people played what? Quake? Team fortress? And the people who dug what I dug about EQ didnt play quake or whatever the others were playing.

ok, back to today.

The problem with guild wars is that its trying to please both crowds. The old school roleplayers like myself want to be able to value and and grow and develop our characters, not just in skills but in character. (roleplayers will know that makes sense) We also want to see demonstrable gain for our time spent as compared to those who have not. We are not nessisarly opposed to player vs player for the sake of it. But we dont care to see the roleplaying side of GW watered down any further for the sake of PVP.

The people who didnt dig on EQ because of the "Rat Hunter 3d" factor, the ones who come to GW from UT, or quake, or whatever because of the pvp (nothing wrong with that) dont want time spent to matter, they dont want to be forced to value thier characters, and thats understandable, the other games didnt ask them to form an attachment to thier character just so that he could be beaten to the flak cannon and get gibbed. They want an even playing field so that pure skill defines the winner. Also understandable.

These ideas cause me to belive that the debate about grind will never end until the people who dont want to be forced to spend time, or value thier character ( as opposed to just seeing it as a disposable collection of skills) are given what they want, which is that Twitch feel, where skill selection and mouse/keyboard skills are the sole seperatoins between players. Also Known as UAS. I say give it to em. Then seperate the two gaming experiences.

But if its done like that, I think they should Give us roleplayers what we want. I dont pretend to speak for every roleplayer, but as a roleplayer I'd love to see less linear content in the game, I'd love to see more developer/GM? interaction within the game. Its silly, but the frog has become a huge roleplaying device because the Roleplayers are so starved for something to work with. And finally , yea I'd like to see an advantage for the time I've spent playing. Which is another argument for seperation. Keep in mind, there should still be pvp in the roleplay game, but I'd rather see pve characters contest only other pve players.

If they were seperated I could play my roleplay character when I felt like it, and if i wanted to get that "twitch" feel I could hop into a truly PVP only character and enjoy that.

Originally Posted by SOT

Nice post. That one was valid I do disagree with your last 2 paragraphs, but for reasons that are obvious. This game caters to "people" not "person".

Originally Posted by Louis Ste Colombe

There is a big difference between "skill against time played" and "(absence of) grind"

Originally Posted by Louis Ste Colombe

Time played is a reward of its own. The more you play chess the better you are at it. There is no way in hell someone who plays 1 hour a month can beat someone who plays 5 hours a week... or 10 a day.

Originally Posted by Luna Thirteen

Which brings me to where many have stated that gaining skill through gameplay isn't grind, as where gaining in-game stats or items is. I'm not going to argue definitions with anyone, all I did was look at the core feelings that the word implied. If you play something through over and over, you will have leverage over someone who hasn't. This could result from in-game benefits, or your skill level increasing(pertaining only to this level/area of the game). Back when I played Nintendo's Super Mario Series, I would play through the game frequently, and of course I could pretty much automaticially play through the beginning stages of the game. It wasn't because I was really that great at the game, but more that I knew where everything was and exactly what to do, through hours upon hours of playing these levels.