Something RPGs lack that MMORPGs have.

[JarlFrank]

The main mechanic of MMOs is grind.

You talk in absolutes about something you barely know anything about.

I tried plenty of MMOs. All of them required a disproportionate investment of time and effort into repetitive elements of the gameplay in order to get ahead.

You mean like every game ever?

If I want to play a multiplayer game I can play an FPS or RTS, just jump on a server and play a quick 1v1 or team match, a game lasts 15 mins to an hour and that's it, no need to grind grind grind to get to the good stuff.

Yes, if I want to compete with better players I have to practice the game until I git gud, but you can also play at low level and have fun. Just start up a match, play 30 mins, have fun, and it's over. It doesn't require me to grind at all.

Same with most single player games.
In an RTS, the single player campaign is made up of a sequence of missions, each mission plays on a different map.
In an FPS, the single player campaign is made up of a sequence of maps until it finishes in a boss fight.
In an RPG, you explore a world and crawl dungeons and work at solving a main quest. You visit different locations and do different quests during the course of the game.

None of these contain heavy grind, unless the game's design is shit-tier (lots of JRPGs have endless grind against random encounters, and are rightfully panned for it because that's shit gameplay).

In your own words:

For example imagine an item that is so good that people will log in every night and sit in the same room of a dungeon and kill stuff for hours, just for a chance to get this item. It might take them a week to get just that one item, and there are 20 more they want right away.

Yeah, spending an entire week camping in the same dungeon, grinding the same encounters over and over again just to get that one loot drop you wanted sounds so much fun.

I'd rather stack files in some office, that would be more engaging than this shit, and at least I'd get paid for it.
MMO gameplay - by your own fucking description - is as dull as a fucking office job, and you need to invest time regularly to stay ahead of the curve. If you take a break for a whole week, your entire guild will have out-leveled you and you can't play with your friends anymore (a thing which doesn't happen in competitive FPS or RTS). MMOs are the only genre where this happens.

Even in a pen and paper RPG it's okay to miss a session, since those aren't about grind either but using your character skills in clever ways to overcome encounters in dungeons. And some P&P RPGs are more about the social aspect of roleplaying.

MMOs are literally office jobs. You sign on every night to do the same shit you do every day, just so you can get a little reward. Except here your reward isn't money (with which you could buy games that are actually good), but rare item drops. Wow so cool, good gameplay 10/10.

 

[anvi]

If I want to play a multiplayer game I can play an FPS or RTS, just jump on a server and play a quick 1v1 or team match, a game lasts 15 mins to an hour and that's it, no need to grind grind grind to get to the good stuff.

But that is exactly how most MMOs are designed now. One of my favorite games had this as part of the design in about 2005. They made everything in the game to be done in 1-2 hour chunks. You could do multiple things if you wanted to play longer, but if you just want to login and do something a short time then you do 1 quest. Although there was other stuff you could do too.

The massive amounts of hours thing is really not necessary. It was also only really created to suit the business model of people paying monthly. You wanted them to at least play a few months. But that isn't an essential part of MMOs and especially now that so many are free to play anyway so they don't care how long you play.

Yes, if I want to compete with better players I have to practice the game until I git gud, but you can also play at low level and have fun. Just start up a match, play 30 mins, have fun, and it's over. It doesn't require me to grind at all.

Again, that is how most modern MMOs are designed. EQ busts your balls but that was 20 years ago. Now they are all flash. The first few hours of a lot MMOs is barely any different to a single player game.

None of these contain heavy grind,

Not really true. Most RTS matches involve the same repetitive base building and build up phase and then you start pumping out units or whatever. There is nothing inherently better about any of those games compared to an MMO. Kingmaker requires a lot of grind, even by MMO standards. It isn't as simple as MMOs are grindy and shitty, single player games are short and sweet.

Yeah, spending an entire week camping in the same dungeon, grinding the same encounters over and over again just to get that one loot drop you wanted sounds so much fun.

You only say that because it sounds boring to you but it isn't really. What you are doing minute to minute is fun and exciting, it just has a lot of downtime and a lot of RNG. If it wasn't fun, people wouldn't do it. It is barely any different to doing a bunch of Skyrim or whatever, it just takes longer but has better combat etc.

MMOs are literally office jobs. You sign on every night to do the same shit you do every day, just so you can get a little reward. Except here your reward isn't money (with which you could buy games that are actually good), but rare item drops. Wow so cool, good gameplay 10/10.

Again, no, they are not. One of the best MMOs I ever played is complete-able in a week. MMOs do not have to be grindy. You are using the worst part of one thing to compare to the best part of other things, and that is really stupid, even for you.

 

[anvi]

Grinding for rare drops...is not part of my conception of what RPGs are about.

That was only one example. Rare drops doesn't even fit in some games, I am just talking about the principle not the specifics. I am talking about making games that last longer. Think of Factorio vs C&C or Kingmaker vs DoS. And like you said, Diablo, people can play that for months.

 

[Machocruz]

Cataclsym DDA is like that for me. I can spend months with a character depending if I can keep them alive that long. If you consider rougelikes and RPGs different genres, it's still a better RPG than 95% of 'true' RPGs.

Dwarf Fortress, the colony is your character plus you have a significant building component that can go on for as long as there are surviving dwarves.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

You are using the worst part of one thing to compare to the best part of other things, and that is really stupid, even for you.

Says the guy who is continuously using Skyrim as his single-player RPG comparation example to the best multiplayer RPG's.

 

[cosmicray]

That's one of the two MMOs I've put real time into, because I liked the story (Imperial Assassin) and of course like Star Wars. The world design was pretty good, though in typical MMO fashion the quest design, combat and pacing were terrible. It was very much a "I'm suffering through this to finish the story and see the next planet" experience, rather than a enjoyable one overall. I'd love to play a version of that game overhauled for singleplayer, though of course it would never happen.

Considering all ingredients are there, it's not a far-fetched idea, but yeah, probably not gonna happen. Can't say I wasn't fond of my Sith Inquisitor campaign, though I couldn't bring myself to finish it in two parts(years apart) that I've played. Maybe I'll try to finish that last planet someday.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Man, I miss Asheron's Call. Are there any MMOs out there that are heavy on the RPG side of things and similar to Asheron's Call?

 

[anvi]

You are using the worst part of one thing to compare to the best part of other things, and that is really stupid, even for you.

Says the guy who is continuously using Skyrim as his single-player RPG comparation example to the best multiplayer RPG's.

I never did that ever.

 

[anvi]

Man, I miss Asheron's Call. Are there any MMOs out there that are heavy on the RPG side of things and similar to Asheron's Call?

Not really, waiting for Pantheon.

 

[Beastro]

MMOs are designed to waste your time and require a disproportionally high investment of effort on the player's part. You have to grind a lot if you want to keep leveling up and improving your gear. The actual gameplay is not very engaging. In fact, it tends to be less engaging than single player dungeon crawlers from the fucking 80s.

We're getting into a bit of a paradox in wanting meaningful gameplay in the way Anvi desires, something which haunts every game to some extent.

That paradox comes from the fact we value things the more we suffer for them. Compare how you value anything just given to that which you've earned through your own hardwork. The thing with grinding in part was that it wasn't a fun thing to do, that meant you suffered for that rare, valuable item when you got it, and other things like the slower exp rate, left you valuing your time in the game and what you slowly built up in it better than if you'd all been given it up front. I've seen the same thing happen in an odd microcosm with Everquest where classic servers could last for months, or years, while the ones that give you max level and thrown everything at you die in the blink of an eye (This resulted in odd things, where the emulator PvP community would set those up to fight in and constantly abandon them to return to the classic servers even though they bitched about the investment and being have-nots when it came to the upper tier gear).

With that said it kind of makes sense with what Anvi's saying, that for good involving games we need that bit of suffering, but then comes the issue of if such a game is worth playing. As a teen or twenty-something, you could nod and say yes, but the older you get the more you realize how even a decent game that takes a long ass time to play might not even be worth it compared to what else you could do with those 60+ hours of your life.

Years ago, I'd have loved the idea of a game Anvi's proposing, but now I'm struggling to play anything that I can't finish in a sitting or two, like old console emulator games, because I start feeling bad I'm just wasting time (which is amusing because I know as well I need to relax and unwind more).

I remember being psyched for the MMO Dawn when I first read about it ages ago, how immersive and emergent the gameplay was promised to be. Now thinking about it, all I can think of is all that inner-game "living" would be better spent in "real" life.

Oh shit, someone is STILL working on Dawn, scheisse.

http://www.glitchless.com/dawn.html

Man, I miss Asheron's Call. Are there any MMOs out there that are heavy on the RPG side of things and similar to Asheron's Call?

They died with WoW and the consumption style system that emerged from EQ with raids and such.

People keep wanting to make new ones in the old model and I doubt they'll succeed. Worse, even if they do I don't think but a small population wants that style of game anymore and they'd bitch about the open ended style.

 

[Ranarama]

How is it any different to New Vegas?

Jarl answered better than I will, but basically good singleplayer RPGs give you enough story, context, richer quest design and stuff like faction systems and tactical combat which add to the "lootin' and watchin' bars go up" core gameplay to make for a more satisfying experience.

But MMOs do that and make it shittier

 

[Nortar]

Everything matters because you are building up over a journey that can take years.

I think you misplace your point.
Would you keep camping and grinding day after day if there was no one to brag about it, no one who would understand the depth of your erm... dedication or luck?
So I suspect it's not the "long term time investment" you miss in single player rpgs, but the part of belonging to a community of like minded people.
Like the fuck else we come to Codex anyway.

 

[RK47]

You can have a wife in MMORPG.
She'll be around... telling everyone how great you are since you're at max level cap.
And be annoying in general because she doesn't understand the nuances of the gameplay and get the entire party killed over and over.
And then you do something silly like spending a lot of in-game gold to get her new dresses.

Divorce by migrating to a new server is a hell lot cheaper though.

 

[anvi]

Everything matters because you are building up over a journey that can take years.

I think you misplace your point.
Would you keep camping and grinding day after day if there was no one to brag about it, no one who would understand the depth of your erm... dedication or luck?
So I suspect it's not the "long term time investment" you miss in single player rpgs, but the part of belonging to a community of like minded people.
Like the fuck else we come to Codex anyway.

I've tried it offline too, it still works. Maybe not as addictive because of what you said. But still pretty good.

 

[JarlFrank]

You only say that because it sounds boring to you but it isn't really. What you are doing minute to minute is fun and exciting, it just has a lot of downtime and a lot of RNG.

A lot of downtime and RNG is not fun to me.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

My point is that they get invested in a character that is all gone after a month.

Dementia is a bitch.

 

[anvi]

You only say that because it sounds boring to you but it isn't really. What you are doing minute to minute is fun and exciting, it just has a lot of downtime and a lot of RNG.

A lot of downtime and RNG is not fun to me.

That's not what I'm suggesting though. I am talking about how you can make a game last longer. Sometimes it suffers because of it, sometimes it is better.

 

[JarlFrank]

You can make a game last longer by giving it replay value, not by making one playthrough last months due to it being artificially stretched out (artificially means not by providing new content, but by making the player repeat existing content several times for whatever reason).

 

[anvi]

But your suggestion costs money that companies don't have, my suggestion makes money.

 

[Gregz]

EQ was awesome

MMORPGs in the late 90s to early 00s like Everquest, WoW, and Anarchy Online were fucking great.

During that time, most of the codex was stuck on a potatobox and a shitty eastern european internet connection, so they won't share or understand the nostalgia.

MMORPGs these days are terrible, for so many reasons that it's almost beyond analysis.

So you can't really blame newfags and slavs (a lot of the codex) for not being fond of MMORPGs.

 

[Sharpedge]

MMORPGs aren't about the content within the world, they are about trying to convince you to play for long enough to meet other people that you get along with and then having those people prevent you from leaving. The idea is that the social aspect acts as the anchor that prevents you from moving on and at that point other people become your content. Unfortunately as a result of that, the actual game within them tends to be quite shallow because people are willing to sit through mindless, repetitive tasks because with company they are less unbearable. Sadly, some more modern RPGs seem to believe that the mindless, repetitive quest aspect of MMOs was a good mechanic to copy and as a result accidents like Dragon Age Inquisition happened. If you want to mimic the player retention of an MMO, it is more about the "multiplayer" aspect than the "RPG" aspect.

MMOs would be better games without those lottery gated grind fests, but it just isn't feasible for a game to be that big and for all the content within it to be high quality content. The sad thing is, it doesn't matter how grindy they are, there will always be someone who is upset because it isn't grindy enough because they run out of stuff to do.

 

[anvi]

^ Why would they do that? You mean old subscription MMOs.