General Discussion

I was playing Fallout 3. It's a solo RPG, like KOTOR if you've played that. Single player RPG's are all about questing.

There is some "grind", that is killing random Mobs that are not in a quest, but 90% of the single player roleplaying  game is a bunch of quests. It's usually linear, but it can be non-linear like KOTOR. There are a bunch of quests on KOTOR, but it doesn't matter what order you do them in.

Good single player RPG quests are fun. They have good stories, and can be very involved. You can spend a lot of time reading quest dialog, lore, and doing a quest over and over again till you succeed. Basically, if you die attempting the quest, you can just do it again till you figure out how to do it without dying.

But, while the quests are very involved, fun, and in depth, there's limited replayability. It's like reading a good book. Sure, you can read it again, but you probably will want to read something new since you already know the story.

Now grinding, as far as I know comes from MMORPGs. Instead of following a quest, you just kill Mobs over and over. Sounds boring right? But it's not if you're in a group. You can organize a good group, everyone can cooperate and play their roles, and chat during downtime. Grinding with a good group can be a lot of fun. DaoC had grinding and quests, but the quests didn't give you THAT much xp over grinding. I preferred to grind whenever possible, because the grouping was fun.

But now games are moving away from grinding, to giving much more XP for completing Quests, which some people call "quest grinding". Why? I think it's because MMORPGs are becoming more like single player rpgs, only you can chat with people while you play, and occaisionally group.

In other words, you want it casual friendly, which means you don't require a group to play the game. So, you put in more and more quests, so the game is more and more like a single player roleplaying game.

All you need is some better more in depth quests, like you see in KOTOR or Fallout 3, and what you'll have is a massive online single player game, that people can play at the same time.  Of course you can still group once in a while, if you want to.

Agree 100%,

I too would prefer to group an grind tough mobs over an over, than do 1,000,000,000 quests

that all they require me to do is run back and forth alot, click on the ground a few times, and kill a few mob.

and the mobs aren't hard, its trivial to kill mobs in MMORPGS now.

actually they aren't even mmorpgs, anymore, just MOGs.

I think MMO is not able to compare with single game because most single gamea are combined with cheat code to play with. Some games are unplayable without cheat code.

I was impressed by the main quest from Fallout 3 but the other quest and the game still too limited as well as the total playing time. The best part could be purified water where James died.

There are plenty AI triggers in the game. If you killed Three Dog then there will be a female took over his place and says, now it's music time, why music only? I am just a technician because some asshole murder our DJ. 

But it is not possible to do it online.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Now grinding, as far as I know comes from MMORPGs.

Dragon Warrior, original final fantasy games, etc. etc. Or even further back, Telengard, etc.

I remember Dragon Warrior.  That was before Final Fantasy came out.  Both games had lots of mob grinding and random encounters.  It was so funny when you got really powerful and went back to old areas the weak mobs would run away from you.  In Final Fantasy I remember some really difficult battles against mobs that would turn your party members to stone.  Fun games for their time.

I'm not sure that grinding mobs in groups in the answer at the moment.  It's been done before and people got sick of it after a while.  Thats why they started to make games like WoW.  Now people are sick of doing quests so I think there has to be something new done.  A new style of play.

Originally posted by AKBandito

Agree 100%,

I too would prefer to group an grind tough mobs over an over, than do 1,000,000,000 quests

that all they require me to do is run back and forth alot, click on the ground a few times, and kill a few mob.

and the mobs aren't hard, its trivial to kill mobs in MMORPGS now.

actually they aren't even mmorpgs, anymore, just MOGs.

read: DDO

Most group-oriented game on the MMORPG market. Yes there are PLENTLY of roleplayers. Community is all very mature and there for the social adventures, not for gear and numbers.

IMO, the only true potential for questing in an MMO is through some sort of player driven content.  What passes for "quests" in MMOs right now is just...well...pathetic.  Really, it's just the easy, accessible, micro-waveable solution.  Thats why it's so popular.  Any non-gamer can jump right in and live the life of an Epic Hero, which consists of killing 10 wolves and returning their hides to Joe The Farmer for that awsome Leather armor +1.  I mean, who wouldn't want to do that!?

It's popular because any child can do it.

It doesn't have any social requirements and doesn't force you to work as a team. MMO companies know this and know they will reach a broad audience with it. It hurts socialising because it makes you game dependent instead of player dependent.

It allows the developers to send players everywhere and anywhere.

breaks up the boredom since players aren't always in the same spot.

spreads out the player base allowing the servers to load balance more efficently

allows the developers to say see we have a developed world with hunderds and thousands of quests.

allows the developers to 'herd' the players from one spot to another so you're with people your level.

attaches signifigance to areas players wouldn't ever want to be before experiance venders were there.

...

I know I'm missing a least a dozen other things.