Oh What A Grind!
Oh What A Grind!
- TucksPa
grind (v) (grīnd): A laborious task, routine, or study.
Collect resources. Make item. Rinse. Repeat.
Get mission. Destroy mobs and den. Rinse. Repeat.
Launch ship. Defeat pirates. Rinse. Repeat.
When the word 'grind' was applied to MMOs I'm pretty sure they had Star Wars Galaxies in mind. Think about it. You can only take two missions at a time so unless you're in a super large group and each person has two entirely different missions from everyone else; you have no choice but to go back and forth doing the same thing over and over again to gain any real XP. If you're combat based and want to move up in the worlds then it takes missions and it takes combat. Oh, the missions have cute names and stories but they're all the same thing really. Bounty Hunters always have to go find someone. Brawlers and Ranged fighters always have to go destroy a den of some sort. Same day, different den.
But combat isn't the worst of the grind. Tradeskills is where it's at! If you're involved in SWG for tradeskills then be prepared to grind your life away. Most of the product you make (whether it is service or retail) has no intrinsic value to other players until you hit the higher levels of your craft. So you wade through the lower levels grinding your brains out like Jennifer Lopez grinds through husbands. Even vendors don't want your wares, and in anticipation of this, the devs created a 'practice' mode so you don't wind up with an inventory full of useless garbage. Of course the resources you need are quite real and require time, money, and you guessed it... grinding.
So why do so many people, including me, still play SWG religiously? The worst tag an MMO can get is to be labeled a 'grindfest'. Who wants to do the same thing over and over again? How did Sony solve this dilemma? One simple word: Immersion
im.mer.sion (n) (ĭ-mûr'zhen, -shen): Complete attention. Intense mental effort. Suspension of disbelief.
I've played in a few gaming worlds and more than any other game I find SWG completely immersive. Sure there's grinding, but you get to choose what to grind! That may sound silly but it's pretty important. If you play WoW you either fight PvP, fight mobs in an instance, fight mobs on a quest, etc etc. Sure they have tradeskills but they're secondary at best to the real gameplay which revolves around combat. You can't progress in tradeskills without progressing in combat. In SWG you never have to swing a sword let alone a light sabre. You can be an Artisan and only an Artisan. You can specialize in armor or in starships. You can be a Chef, a Dancer, or an Image Designer. The options are staggering to say the least! Don't like Tatooine? Hop on over to Corellia, or Lok. Maybe check out a planet full of Wookiees. Don't care for a ground game at all? Jump to Lightspeed. Do a little of everything or do just one thing.
Yet that's all still grinding of a sort. so how come it's not as annoying as in other games? Because these players are Artisans. They are Rebels and Imperials and Pilots and Jedis. The way the game plays allows for so much suspension of disbelief that you actually get excited at the concept of 'meeting' Han Solo or Darth Vader. You feel the hair on the back of your neck when you see a Rebel scum player walking through your city. (Change that to Imperial scum if you're a Rebel.)
And that takes us to the next point that makes SWG so addictive you have to keep coming back in spite of yourself: Community.
com.mu.ni.ty (n) (k -my n -t ): A group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society.
Every MMO is theoretically about community. Some cram it down our throats by requiring groups in certain instances. Want that uber loot? Gotta get a group. But rarely is it true community. Ask a question in some games and get ignored, laughed at, called a n00b, or downright insulted. Sure there are people in every game willing to help you out, but they're getting harder and harder to find. In SWG they've made it both easy to find help and easy to give it. It's the only game I've seen where you can designate yourself as a Helper so people know you're not only willing to help but eager to do so. And people want to be Helpers because they love the game and want everyone else to as well.
Almost anyone will help you with training; saving you credits and increasing their apprenticeship points which they need to Master their profession. You can go hang out in a Cantina in virtually any sizeable city and talk with folks from all over the Galaxies. Watch them dance, listen to them play their instruments, knock back a few. Fly with friends on a luxury space yacht. Grab a group and gain better XP by fighting better mobs: everyone gains the same XP so you can grab a group much higher than your level and get more, more, more!
But the bottom line for all of this is that it all adds up to a game where you can do anything, be anyone, and play how you want. You don't have to find a group to go through a cave to get off an island. You don't have to spend hours in one small zone searching for mobs to kill or resources to gather. You don't have to fight! You can customize your gear to unfathomable degrees and be as unique in appearance as you are in functionality. To be as unique as you are in real life.
Collect resources. Make item. Rinse. Repeat.
Get mission. Destroy mobs and den. Rinse. Repeat.
Launch ship. Defeat pirates. Rinse. Repeat.
When the word 'grind' was applied to MMOs I'm pretty sure they had Star Wars Galaxies in mind. Think about it. You can only take two missions at a time so unless you're in a super large group and each person has two entirely different missions from everyone else; you have no choice but to go back and forth doing the same thing over and over again to gain any real XP. If you're combat based and want to move up in the worlds then it takes missions and it takes combat. Oh, the missions have cute names and stories but they're all the same thing really. Bounty Hunters always have to go find someone. Brawlers and Ranged fighters always have to go destroy a den of some sort. Same day, different den.
But combat isn't the worst of the grind. Tradeskills is where it's at! If you're involved in SWG for tradeskills then be prepared to grind your life away. Most of the product you make (whether it is service or retail) has no intrinsic value to other players until you hit the higher levels of your craft. So you wade through the lower levels grinding your brains out like Jennifer Lopez grinds through husbands. Even vendors don't want your wares, and in anticipation of this, the devs created a 'practice' mode so you don't wind up with an inventory full of useless garbage. Of course the resources you need are quite real and require time, money, and you guessed it... grinding.
So why do so many people, including me, still play SWG religiously? The worst tag an MMO can get is to be labeled a 'grindfest'. Who wants to do the same thing over and over again? How did Sony solve this dilemma? One simple word: Immersion
im.mer.sion (n) (ĭ-mûr'zhen, -shen): Complete attention. Intense mental effort. Suspension of disbelief.
I've played in a few gaming worlds and more than any other game I find SWG completely immersive. Sure there's grinding, but you get to choose what to grind! That may sound silly but it's pretty important. If you play WoW you either fight PvP, fight mobs in an instance, fight mobs on a quest, etc etc. Sure they have tradeskills but they're secondary at best to the real gameplay which revolves around combat. You can't progress in tradeskills without progressing in combat. In SWG you never have to swing a sword let alone a light sabre. You can be an Artisan and only an Artisan. You can specialize in armor or in starships. You can be a Chef, a Dancer, or an Image Designer. The options are staggering to say the least! Don't like Tatooine? Hop on over to Corellia, or Lok. Maybe check out a planet full of Wookiees. Don't care for a ground game at all? Jump to Lightspeed. Do a little of everything or do just one thing.
Yet that's all still grinding of a sort. so how come it's not as annoying as in other games? Because these players are Artisans. They are Rebels and Imperials and Pilots and Jedis. The way the game plays allows for so much suspension of disbelief that you actually get excited at the concept of 'meeting' Han Solo or Darth Vader. You feel the hair on the back of your neck when you see a Rebel scum player walking through your city. (Change that to Imperial scum if you're a Rebel.)
And that takes us to the next point that makes SWG so addictive you have to keep coming back in spite of yourself: Community.
com.mu.ni.ty (n) (k -my n -t ): A group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society.
Every MMO is theoretically about community. Some cram it down our throats by requiring groups in certain instances. Want that uber loot? Gotta get a group. But rarely is it true community. Ask a question in some games and get ignored, laughed at, called a n00b, or downright insulted. Sure there are people in every game willing to help you out, but they're getting harder and harder to find. In SWG they've made it both easy to find help and easy to give it. It's the only game I've seen where you can designate yourself as a Helper so people know you're not only willing to help but eager to do so. And people want to be Helpers because they love the game and want everyone else to as well.
Almost anyone will help you with training; saving you credits and increasing their apprenticeship points which they need to Master their profession. You can go hang out in a Cantina in virtually any sizeable city and talk with folks from all over the Galaxies. Watch them dance, listen to them play their instruments, knock back a few. Fly with friends on a luxury space yacht. Grab a group and gain better XP by fighting better mobs: everyone gains the same XP so you can grab a group much higher than your level and get more, more, more!
But the bottom line for all of this is that it all adds up to a game where you can do anything, be anyone, and play how you want. You don't have to find a group to go through a cave to get off an island. You don't have to spend hours in one small zone searching for mobs to kill or resources to gather. You don't have to fight! You can customize your gear to unfathomable degrees and be as unique in appearance as you are in functionality. To be as unique as you are in real life.
| Posted by cheeseman at 2005-08-01 20:26:44 | |||
| mmmm - nope still not sold on grindfest... still think more work than play is no fun... still a reason to quit an mmorp early | |||
| Posted by Younglink03 at 2005-08-03 20:14:42 | |||
| Ya it was a good game while it lasted one of the best games ive ever pla*beep* but there were several flaws that i think can simply ruin the game for some of us. Certain professions are extremely difficult to get exp in. In most combat proffessions you can just find a group of better people than you and hunt in a group that took up most of my time so its not so bad but other proffessions are a lot harder to advance in. Half the dancersmusicians tell their person to start dancing then leave their computer alone while they slowly rack up the exp and artisan was the most annoying thing in the world since i bought all the resources and then flushed them down the drain with practice mode it was very frustrating considering all the money i spent acquiring the recourses in the first place i could have gotten them by other means then buying them but it was impractical to have to wait so long for my recourses. Wich brings me to another point if you have the aspiration to become a jedi just know that it is a long and very hard path and at the end you might consider it not to be worth it. I pla*beep* for several months close to a year and i had experiences with it up to a certain point. At first youre just a regular old person but as you do certain quests and earn badges youll become closer to force sensitive. At a certain point you are force sensitive. Then you wait for the old man when he comes it begins a short series of quests after you complete them you are at the force village. then you unlock a discipline at a time in force sensitive skills. After you unlock one you have to wait for the phase of the village to change and then you can unlock another one. The phase changes every 3 weeks and after youve unlocked and fully advanced to the top in each diciplinewich is very difficult since you have to convert regular exp into related force sensitive exp you then do a couple more short quests then youre at the beginning of the Padawon trials. You go through the padawon trials wich have 16 quests most of wich are go to this planet and talk to this person then you are tested by certain events to see whether you are worthy of becoming a jedi. After all this you are a JEDI PADAWON Wow...a...padawon Is probably what most people think at this point because at this point youve unlocked all of your jedi skills but jedi master is still far off. This whole process takes more than a year and thats if you know exactly what youre doing and you have veteran friends that can help you do it longer if youre on ur own. Most people dont bother becoming a jedi and the few who do often spend the rest of their time as a padawon hiding from bounty hunters until they are a jedi knight. Basically a huge very difficult process yet at the end youre still not nearly done since now you have to gain jedi exp and most ways you get that you have to do it far away from other players or with bounty hunters on ur tail so unless you want to deal with bounty hunters you have to get jedi exp on ur own. I really wanted to become a jedi and i didnt even get to the padawon trials because theres so much grinding and waiting involved. It is still a very good game although i just dont think that its good enough to pay 15 per month to play it mostly because im not even 15 yet so i cant really get 15 every month without working my butt off doing yard work and i just dont think its worth it but there are many people that it would be worth it and i might play it when im a little older. | |||
