[MUD-Dev] Level Grind - alternative

[Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes]

Wed, Jul 28, 2004 at 03:59:38PM -0400 in
<Sea1-DAV42Wm6l2I90Q0000dc0b at hotmail.com>, Brendan O'Brien
<tazzik_dystrian at hotmail.com> spake:

> The eye-opener for me was a couple of years ago, while I was
> trying to introduce my wife to Dark Age of Camelot.  I walked her
> through the character creation, taught her some of the basic
> controls, and sent her off into the world (with me looking over
> her shoulder).  After spending about 15 minutes killing the snakes
> and rats around the starting area, she was already getting fairly
> bored.  "What next?" she asked.  Well, I tried to explain that she
> was really too weak to go anywhere yet, not to mention too poor to
> buy anything at the shops in town.  I did my best to convince her
> that this was standard practice to get players to spend time
> learning and developing characters.  I understood that it really
> wasn't fun at all yet, but that it would get a lot better at
> higher levels...

> As I explained it all to her, I really began to listen to exactly
> what I was saying.  It became very clear that she would have no
> interest wasting weeks or months of playing a weak, boring
> character, just to get to the more enjoyable portions of the game.
> I think those of us who grew up playing in these environments tend
> to lose sight of how this actually looks to a newcomer.  We do our
> best to power through to beginning stages, because we both expect
> to be required to so and know that it really will get better
> eventually.  However, when confronted by the wife asking a simple
> question "Why?", I couldn't come up with a reason that even made
> sense to me.  "That's just the way it is with these games," wasn't
> about to get her excited about playing again.

I'm currently playing Final Fantasy XI.  It was very clearly
designed for casual gamers who don't have 8 hours a day to play
games.

Initial levelling up is very fast.  In a typical 4-hour first solo
session, you can go from level 1 to 5, get some new weapons and
spells, and fight maybe a dozen kinds of monsters.  After that, you
can explore the starting fields and a couple of nearby "dungeons".

The level grind slows down a lot later; 10th-15th levels each take
several hours solo, and past that point you really need to work in a
party (up to 6 players), or even an alliance of multiple parties (up
to 18 players).  If you get bored of your current job, you can level
up another job and switch back at will.

You can do many of the quests, or start fishing or crafting, even at
1st level, so there's something to do for a break.  The quests
reward you with money and "fame" (unfortunately among NPCs only, it
just activates more quests).  The loot from even low-level creatures
is worthwhile; there's a lot of it, but it's in very high demand
from the crafters.  Basic equipment is pretty cheap at the auction
house, so you can go shopping soon.

You can play for an hour or two a day and have an enjoyable
experience.  Getting a party together is trival, and the automated
treasure management generally leaves everyone satisfied without
hours of argument.

The plots, the lovely world design, and the rest of the game is
really just gravy after that.

I suspect hardcore 16-hour-a-day-stick-an-IV-in-my-arm gamers won't
find FFXI interesting at all.  When d00dz show up and start abusing
people, they're openly mocked, then blacklisted or a GM is called
pretty quickly.  There are few ways to be a griefer (no
kill-stealing, no ninja-looting; you can train monsters, but
higher-level characters usually take care of the problem quick).
The Japanese players set a good starting example for politeness in
the game.  The world and characters are very cute, at levels that
are toxic to the typical 14-year-old testosterone-poisoned male.  I
consider all these things virtues, in that they drive away the
players I don't ever want to interact with.

--
 <a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/">  Mark Hughes </a>
"Doing the impossible makes us mighty." -Captain Malcolm Reynolds, Firefly
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