October 2004
- intellectual history T.L. Taylor
- intellectual history Mike
- Text-tospeech (Was Shift in time) Mike Rozak
- Text-tospeech (Was Shift in time) Mike Rozak
- [NEWS][BIZ] China to limit online gaming Ghilardi Filippo
- TECH: Punkbuster type technology and why we don't see any big name MMOG's using it David Wright
- ADMIN: Attitude, this list, and moderation J C Lawrence
- (no subject) Unknown
- PvP and teamspeak? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- PvP and teamspeak? Victor Wachter
- PvP and teamspeak? Corey Crawford
- PvP and teamspeak? Brian Hook
- PvP and teamspeak? Victor Wachter
- PvP and teamspeak? Ghilardi Filippo
- PvP and teamspeak? David Johansson
- PvP and teamspeak?
- PvP and teamspeak? Douglas Goodall
- PvP and teamspeak? Matt Mihaly
- PvP and teamspeak? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- PvP and teamspeak? Matt Mihaly
- PvP and teamspeak? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- PvP and teamspeak?
- PvP and teamspeak? Matt Mihaly
- PvP and teamspeak? Corey Crawford
- PvP and teamspeak? Ling Lo
- PvP and teamspeak? Dana V. Baldwin
- PvP and teamspeak? Cosmik
- PvP and teamspeak? Cosmik
- PvP and teamspeak? Mike Rozak
- PvP and teamspeak? Corey Cauble
- PvP and teamspeak? Ghilardi Filippo
- Text-to-speech (Was Shift in time) Mike Rozak
- Why do smart people grind? ceo
- Why do smart people grind? Geoff Hollis
- Why do smart people grind? Matt Mihaly
- Why do smart people grind? Miroslav Silovic
- Why do smart people grind? ghovs
- Why do smart people grind? Oliver Smith
Geoff Hollis wrote:
> My guess is it's more due to its addictive nature, and the
> achievement we feel after is probably some kind of retrospective
> justification. Highly repetitive actions with even the smallest,
> intermittent reward are highly addictive. My guess is this is also
> enhanced by knowing that once - just once - you might hit paydirt
> and get that ultra-rare item that everyone is after (grinding is
> like playing a slot machine, where levels and items are the
> prizes).
There are several definitions of "grind". I tend to think of it as
when a player locks down to a particular mechanism for harvesting
experience rather than gadding about adventuring and enjoying the
game. I think all definitions carry a sense of repetition.
The context of the individual game can have a large factor on why
people grind. If the player likes the game environment and setting,
relates to the background and culture of the virtual world, and if
they have a social community to fall back on when gameplay fails
them, then the player will endeavor to find ways to enjoy the game.
Most MMOGS necessarily introduce a divide between players of
different levels, to try and prevent players circumventing the
prescribed rate of consumption of content to join their buddies. I'm
not entirely sure who came to the conclusion that killing
rats/snakes/wallnuts was infinitely more compelling than hanging out
with your buddies, but... It's a concept that's stuck, although CoH
and a few others seem to finally be tackling it.
I would suggest three main reasons people grind:
- Catching up with their buddies,
- Human 'instancing',
- Content/end-game achievement
I would suggest that the foremost reason that people grind is to be
with their buddies; your buddies may be your primary reason for
being in the game, they are probably the source of all the fun and
exciting things you are hearing about the game. The
rats/snakes/wallnuts make the water-cooler discussions of your
buddies experiences sound like epic battles.
Since games usually reward groups bonus exp over solo players, and
your buddies are evidently a group, you're at a double advantage,
and if you take time to stop and play nice, the only thing that will
happen is you will fall behind.
Naturally, the player will find the best exp/time ratio and try and
catch up with your buddies. The player doesn't want to grind, but
it's the only way to achieve his world now, instead of yours.
Second, in games where instancing is absent or poorly
used/implemented, players will tend to do their own instancing, by
staking a claim to their exp "water hole" for the night. Given the
choice between spending the night getting 1/4 of the exp you could
have elsewhere, and spending the night wandering from place to place
trying to find exp and making 1/1000th of the exp you could have
elsewhere, the players will "instance" the camp as their own.
Third, I think, is the player's desire to avoid certain aspects of
content.
If a layer of content is particularly unappealing, oversimplistic or
just not fun, players are going to want to avoid it. If, however, it
happens to be compulsory, then players will naturally want to
abbreviate their experience of it.
What a player considers as a milestone is also significant. Some
players perceive level progression as a sufficient reward for a hard
nights work. Other players want a new skill, spell, or something,
so that tomorrow night won't be the same.
Exploration and questing are all well and good, but they don't
provide the same levels of reward for all players. Exploration isn't
fun in an open field, if you have no content for your explorers to
discover, they won't enjoy it. Your questers won't find repeating 1
of 8 quest templates fun throughout their entire game career.
In DAoC and SWG players frequently want to get cracking on PvP, and
the best place to do that from is with a high level character. The
PvE is just a hinderance to reaching it, they possibly don't enjoy
PvE at all, but are willing to suffer it as long as they can get it
over with quickly.
SWG has the additional end-game option of becoming a Jedi, which
naturally appeals to a great many players. Getting from ordinary to
force sensitive to jedi can be done through various types of skill
points, but for most players it boils down to mele/combat exp,
obtained through kills.
Without wanting to focus too much on the SWG specifics, the point
here is that for players to obtain the end game, usually repetition
is compulsory. It's been estimated to take around 21,000 kills to
unlock the 4 skill in an SWG jedi skill tree - just for that skill,
not including the exp required to reach it. SWG doesn't have 21,000
free standing monsters to be fought, so if the player adventured
laboriously and killed every single instance of an npc in the world,
he'd still have to repeat himself some.
Why would any smart person want to drag that out over months and
months, instead of finding a way to get it over with as quickly as
possible... ?
- Why do smart people grind?
- Why do smart people grind? neild-mud@misago.org
- Why do smart people grind? Kirinyaga
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Brett Bibby
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Cosmik
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Mike Rozak
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Russ Whiteman
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Matt Mihaly
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Ted L. Chen
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Per Magne Bjørnerud
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Paul Canniff
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Mike Rozak
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design darksuit
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Dana V. Baldwin
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Sean Kelly
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Richard A. Bartle
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Mike Rozak
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Richard A. Bartle
- [SPAM] DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Dana V. Baldwin
- [SPAM] DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- [SPAM] DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Tess Snider
- [SPAM] DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Byron Ellacott
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Damion Schubert
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Mike Rozak
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Damion Schubert
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Corey Cauble
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Amanda Walker
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Mike Rozak
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Dana V. Baldwin
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Mike Rozak
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Dana V. Baldwin
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Dana V. Baldwin
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Corey Cauble
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Douglas Goodall
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Brett Bibby
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Douglas Galbi
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Ted L. Chen
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Douglas Galbi
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Richard A. Bartle
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Tess Snider
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Lost Penguin
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Mike Rozak
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Mike Rozak
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Dana V. Baldwin
- DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Damion Schubert
- Newsweek prints an article reguarding the selling of virtual currency Chris
- Newsweek prints an article reguarding the selling of virtual currency Chris
- Cheating in the world Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Cheating in the world Matt Mihaly
- Cheating in the world Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Cheating in the world Matt Mihaly
- Cheating in the world Matt Mihaly
- Cheating in the world Michael Hartman
- Cheating in the world Michael Hartman
- Cheating in the world Paul Schwanz
- Cheating in the world Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Cheating in the world Paul Schwanz
- Cheating in the world Damion Schubert
- Cheating in the world Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Cheating in the world Matt Mihaly
- Cheating in the world Matt Mihaly
- Cheating in the world Dana V. Baldwin
- Cheating in the world Ted L. Chen
- Cheating in the world Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Cheating in the world Matt Mihaly
- Cheating in the world Shannon Sullivan
- Cheating in the world Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Cheating in the world Shannon Sullivan
- Cheating in the world Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Cheating in the world Fred Snyder
- Cheating in the world Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Cheating in the world Zach Collins (Siege)
- Cheating in the world Miroslav Silovic
- Cheating in the world Corey Cauble
- Cheating in the world Shannon Sullivan
- Will players pay for public services? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Will players pay for public services? ceo
- Will players pay for public services? ceo
- Will players pay for public services? Matt Mihaly
- Will players pay for public services? Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Will players pay for public services? Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Indies unite? Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Indies unite? Mike Rozak
- Indies unite? Mike Rozak
- Indies unite? Boris Triebel
- Indies unite? Dana V. Baldwin
- NEWS: Oblivion RPG's (next version of Morrowind) NPC AI Mike Rozak
- NEWS: Oblivion RPG's (next version of Morrowind) NPC AI Mike Rozak
- BIZ: Europe & Distrubution Johan
- BIZ: Europe & Distrubution Matt Mihaly
- BIZ: Europe & Distrubution Daniel James
- R: BIZ: Europe & Distrubution Valerio Santinelli
- BIZ: Europe & Distrubution Dana V. Baldwin
- BIZ: Europe & Distrubution HRose
- BIZ: Europe & Distrubution Vincent Archer
- BIZ: Europe & Distrubution Johan
- BIZ: Europe & Distrubution Matt Mihaly
- BIZ: Europe & Distrubution Tamzen Cannoy
- BIZ: Europe & Distrubution Ghilardi Filippo
- [OT] Europe & Distribution Ben Carter
- BIZ: Europe & Distrubution Ghilardi Filippo
- BIZ: Europe & Distrubution ceo
- BIZ: Europe & Distrubution Michael Hartman
- BIZ: Europe & Distrubution HRose
- BIZ: Europe & Distrubution Dana V. Baldwin
- BIZ: Europe & Distrubution Erik Bethke
- BIZ: Europe & Distrubution Bloo
- BIZ: Europe & Distrubution Per Vognsen
- [OT] Hi all an first time MMORPG designer tries to get in the loop Sam Byard
- [SPAM] DGN: Effect of voice chat on game design Tess Snider
- MEDIA: Chris Crawford on Interactive Storytelling Mike Rozak
- Sweatshops? Tess Snider