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2013: What's Coming and What's Going


Urza285

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>Grinding has always been a core part of the game;

>Grinding isn't necessarily good or bad for the game. It just caters to specific people;

>Therefore it's ridiculous to play said game when you don't enjoy this core part and ridiculous to complain about it - especially due to the first point.

 

As for Yoko;

 

as well as state that I find the justifications/normalizations for/of grinding to be pretty unacceptable and detrimental in a myriad of ways.

 

Look, if you don't like grinding then go play a different game - it's that simple.

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You also have to acknowledge that perhaps after playing through a grind for a while, it can sometimes become quite fun to you because you start to recognise ways to play it more efficiently (like you're competing with yourself). Surely you've had more fun getting through a Slayer task feeling like you're raining death on your foes as opposed to using momentum and then switching to another window.

I can appreciate how people might find this 'fun', in the sense that someone might find going to a museum fun. What I find slightly contradictory is that people don't just play games to have fun. They also play games to relax, to explore their creativity, to develop social skills, to relieve stress, to avoid being too serious, to explore the world (etc.).

 

From that perspective, when you're performing the same task thousands of times over with very little variation, it's very difficult to see how you're really 'playing' at all, unless you're using the term in a very niche way. It implies you're trying the play the game, rather than trying to play with the game. Another example would be having someone who plays an FPS game as an amateur, but still takes it very seriously and gets very wound up when they get killed all the time, as opposed to someone who could be getting slaughtered but could still find some element of the game they find inherently playful. The former we usually say is "taking the game too seriously", i.e. they're not really being playful any more, it's actually become a source of further stress. The latter we would happily have round to play said FPS with as a social activity, because we'd like to share that playful experience with them.

 

I think that's the real dichotomy in this debate. Some people find grinding fun, an overwhelming majority (most of which aren't playing RuneScape) find it a source of further stress and won't touch it.

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as well as state that I find the justifications/normalizations for/of grinding to be pretty unacceptable and detrimental in a myriad of ways.

Look, if you don't like grinding then go play a different game - it's that simple.

No, it's not.

 

Different parts of the game cater to different people. Back in ye olde days, that was one of the game's strengths. Replacing those other play styles and niches with grinding alienates the players that favored them.

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I'm not complaining about EoC or Sizzling Summer.

But yeah, buying spins is stupid. And the only thing I ever did with SGS was Spike Trap Haircut with 160 of my free RuneCoins.

They really over-stressed that.

(grumpy cat face)

 

I'll believe it when i see it.

Ditto him, though.

 

And those skills better not be "eating" and "breathing". Or something like that.

Supporter of Treasure Trails and can't stand non-matching armor.

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I'm glad JaGEx is acknowledging how unpopular micro transactions are. Step in the right direction, instead of covering their ears saying "nah nah nah I'm not listening!"

99 dungeoneering achieved, thanks to everyone that celebrated with me!

 

♪♪ Don't interrupt me as I struggle to complete this thought
Have some respect for someone more forgetful than yourself ♪♪

♪♪ And I'm not done
And I won't be till my head falls off ♪♪

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as well as state that I find the justifications/normalizations for/of grinding to be pretty unacceptable and detrimental in a myriad of ways.

Look, if you don't like grinding then go play a different game - it's that simple.

No, it's not.

 

Different parts of the game cater to different people. Back in ye olde days, that was one of the game's strengths. Replacing those other play styles and niches with grinding alienates the players that favored them.

 

Deletion does have a valid point, in that it's the player's responsibility to quit if he/she is no longer having fun. I'm not arguing with that. The point I'm trying to make is that the grinding aspect is generally a flaw in the game which ultimately harms the game more than it benefits it, and therefore changing that aspect would benefit Jagex and the community. The game as it stands now has shifted more towards necessary grinding and less towards fun and balance like in the past.

 

I don't really care if RS dies tomorrow, for whatever reason. But for those of you who are still heavily-invested in the game and/or enjoy the grind, then it would be in your best interest to consider what long-term effects this emphasis in grinding is having on Runescape's lifespan. As I've said before, I believe emphasizing and encouraging grinding contributes to the game's ultimate decline.

 

I think I'm done discussing this for now. :P

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As I've been saying for a few pages.

 

Grind based games have these problems, automation is the basic problem of any grind based game, because time and focus investment is the only difficulty in such games.

Sandbox games have problems with griefing typically.

Human skill based games have problems with monstrous learning curves as well as people messing with their clients to create advantages.

 

 

All the above have client editing as a major source of problems. This reply is to Muggi. In every game out there, if you know what your doing you can mess with the client to either bug abuse or get an unfair advantage. Dayz you get full on "hackers" killing entire servers, and RS you get botters, WoW you get bots/teleport "hacks", and all sorts of other interesting quirks. Other games you can make your own add-ons by messing with the client to give you better warnings then other players may have in unmodified clients. Basically what kind of game can you make that has some sort of purpose to it, that cant be broken by messing with the game client?

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From that perspective, when you're performing the same task thousands of times over with very little variation, it's very difficult to see how you're really 'playing' at all, unless you're using the term in a very niche way. It implies you're trying the play the game, rather than trying to play with the game. Another example would be having someone who plays an FPS game as an amateur, but still takes it very seriously and gets very wound up when they get killed all the time, as opposed to someone who could be getting slaughtered but could still find some element of the game they find inherently playful. The former we usually say is "taking the game too seriously", i.e. they're not really being playful any more, it's actually become a source of further stress. The latter we would happily have round to play said FPS with as a social activity, because we'd like to share that playful experience with them.

How can you truly separate a guy playing the game as opposed to a guy playing with the game? If I'm having fun on my slayer task using abilities in the most efficient cycle, does that automatically qualify as the former? Likewise, if I say stuff like "aww yeah" or "boom" when using these abilities (it's fun to say boom on Incendiary Shot, really...) does that automatically qualify as the latter?

 

I guess what I'm trying to distinguish is the line you draw at which playing becomes grinding.

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In real life MMO you don't get 99 smithing by making endless bronze daggers.

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I'm glad JaGEx is acknowledging how unpopular micro transactions are. Step in the right direction, instead of covering their ears saying "nah nah nah I'm not listening!"

^Ditto this too.

But if they've known we hate them, then it seems like:

Jagex says: La la la let's lose half of our player base by making stupid stuff!!!1!

Playerbase says: Boo! -leaves runescape, blacklists Jagex-

Supporter of Treasure Trails and can't stand non-matching armor.

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as well as state that I find the justifications/normalizations for/of grinding to be pretty unacceptable and detrimental in a myriad of ways.

Look, if you don't like grinding then go play a different game - it's that simple.

No, it's not.

 

Different parts of the game cater to different people. Back in ye olde days, that was one of the game's strengths. Replacing those other play styles and niches with grinding alienates the players that favored them.

 

Can you provide examples?

 

I would agree that from going from a new player to end-game content now takes longer than it used to. But that's a result of the game being older, and giving updates catering to the to the increasingly higher-levelled player-base.

 

The point I'm trying to make is that the grinding aspect is generally a flaw in the game which ultimately harms the game more than it benefits it, and therefore changing that aspect would benefit Jagex and the community.

 

I agree that it would make the game more appealing to a wider majority of people. But I can't say whether it not it would benefit the current community.

 

The game as it stands now has shifted more towards necessary grinding and less towards fun and balance like in the past.

 

I hear this quite often, and I'm not sure if I believe it or not. Has the game actually shifted towards being more grind-orientated than it was, or does it just appear that way because the population base is higher-levelled compared to what it was and hence it requires more investment than it previously did to be in the same position relative to everyone else?

 

As I've said before, I believe emphasizing and encouraging grinding contributes to the game's ultimate decline.

 

Again; I've heard this a lot but I'm not sure whether I believe it. Is it really the grind that is the majoy contributor to the declining playerbase? I don't know. In my opinion, the game will be attracting (and keeping), generally, the same type of players as before - those that enjoy grinding. But less of them due to the out-datedness of the game and the prevalence of similar games in the market.

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Can you provide examples?

 

I would agree that from going from a new player to end-game content now takes longer than it used to. But that's a result of the game being older, and giving updates catering to the to the increasingly higher-levelled player-base.

There's a reason that questers complain about having requirements in the 90s: the play style doesn't require much grinding (Or, it didn't in the past), so it attracts people that don't want to grind for hundreds of hours to get to the point where they can play the game.

 

So if they add requirements in the 90s, it changes the focus of the game from the one that questers like, to the one that our always-respectful completionist/boss hunter crowd likes, who then proceeds to tell the questers that if they want to play the game, they'll have to grind... Regardless of the fact that they didn't have to prior to that point.

 

If the player base is getting higher-leveled, it's because there's nobody new coming in. That's also not exactly healthy for the game, and almost tautological.

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From that perspective, when you're performing the same task thousands of times over with very little variation, it's very difficult to see how you're really 'playing' at all, unless you're using the term in a very niche way. It implies you're trying the play the game, rather than trying to play with the game. Another example would be having someone who plays an FPS game as an amateur, but still takes it very seriously and gets very wound up when they get killed all the time, as opposed to someone who could be getting slaughtered but could still find some element of the game they find inherently playful. The former we usually say is "taking the game too seriously", i.e. they're not really being playful any more, it's actually become a source of further stress. The latter we would happily have round to play said FPS with as a social activity, because we'd like to share that playful experience with them.

How can you truly separate a guy playing the game as opposed to a guy playing with the game? If I'm having fun on my slayer task using abilities in the most efficient cycle, does that automatically qualify as the former? Likewise, if I say stuff like "aww yeah" or "boom" when using these abilities (it's fun to say boom on Incendiary Shot, really...) does that automatically qualify as the latter?

 

I guess what I'm trying to distinguish is the line you draw at which playing becomes grinding.

Both are forms of grinding. "Grinding" should not be defined as the state of doing something in the absence of being playful while doing that thing, and so in that sense, there's no line to draw.

 

The difference is that you are finding something inherently playful about doing that slayer task. The fact that you're enjoying the task means you're finding it playful; it's giving you that sense of joy and lightheartedness that accompanies your playing of the game. The other side would be somebody who's going for comp, but who's moaning because they find agility/runecrafting/whatever tedious and they keep burning out. They're no longer playing. The task is now failing to provide them with any of the benefits the activity would bring if (s)he were truly 'playing'. In fact, contrary to the intention of any recreational activity, it's actually making them more stressed, not less.

 

Both examples are grinding, since the aim at some point along the line is to gain experience.* However, in your slayer example, gaining experience is no longer the primary motivator; the simple enjoyment gained from killing the monsters so competently and easily is a far stronger reinforcing factor. The second example, the only motivator is the experience, and the promise that once they've achieved so much, they'll never have to do it again. Both are 'grinding', only one is 'playing'.

 

* = Interestingly, most other gaming communities call this process "farming"; the term "grinding" is almost completely unique to the MMO communities and has obvious connotations and imagery associated to it.

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But at the end of the day, does anyone really say, "I'm bored. I kind of wanna go to the Runespan, that sounds like fun." Does anybody keep going back to the Runespan after they hit 99 runecrafting?

I like this point the most. If you wouldn't do it without a strong XP or item incentive it needs to be changed. Unfortunately that includes A LOT of things...

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I think that simply increasing the XP rates for most activities would be enough for me to have fun training a skill.

Because whenever I'm doing something that has a super high xp rate, I go like "Awyeah, I'm getting XP super fast!" and enjoying it.

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I think that simply increasing the XP rates for most activities would be enough for me to have fun training a skill.

Because whenever I'm doing something that has a super high xp rate, I go like "Awyeah, I'm getting XP super fast!" and enjoying it.

 

I agree... sorta. As time goes on, the "super high XP" rates also have to adjust accordingly. For example, hunter and thieving are like 240k XP/hr... yet I can't stand them. If they were 500k XP/hr, I probably wouldn't mind as much. Plus the fact that I "need" to get 91 thieving for PoP and elite tasks (as opposed to, say, level 80) makes me uninterested in training thieving.

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Deletion does have a valid point, in that it's the player's responsibility to quit if he/she is no longer having fun. I'm not arguing with that. The point I'm trying to make is that the grinding aspect is generally a flaw in the game which ultimately harms the game more than it benefits it, and therefore changing that aspect would benefit Jagex and the community. The game as it stands now has shifted more towards necessary grinding and less towards fun and balance like in the past.

To be quite honest, I don't truly believe that the game has changed to become more necessary grinding, or atleast that it has not directly. Instead I would argue that the community, the users, became more goal oriented, and the game followed it's users in providing them ways to express and display their achieved goals. The game will follow it's users and community.

 

There are people who a greatly fond of the current grinding system, and their are people who feel the current grinding should be replaced or else re-worked so that there is a higher element of fun involved. In my mind the game is currently at a stage where it's community is redefining itself. I did not play in the early days of RS, so this is just my interpretation from what I have heard, but it would seem to me that in the early days the community looked for fun in the actions they performed. Whereas nowadays, fun it looked for in the rate of achievement.

 

The community has started shifting to be closer to this notion of maximizing XP or else GP an hour, and it has stressed the achievements of these maximum rates as fun.

 

In the original scenario of the game's origins true grinding as exists now would be horrendously boring. In the current shift of community it can be considered fun.

 

 

Guess I kinda rambled on there. Hopefully you get the point I was hoping to get across.

 

I think that simply increasing the XP rates for most activities would be enough for me to have fun training a skill.

Because whenever I'm doing something that has a super high xp rate, I go like "Awyeah, I'm getting XP super fast!" and enjoying it.

 

The problem with this idea is that it would only feel "super fast" because you were used to the old XP rates. After a week or two the new rates would feel old and boring again.

 

This is why it is necessary for a game designer to either increase a maximum achievement in these kinds of games, or else to play careful attention to how quickly the increase the rates as time goes on.

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One of the reasons why F2P is dying, and why RS in general is sort of shamed in the mainstream and rather unpopular, I suspect, is because of the grinding and the all encompassing nature of it. Most people look down upon, have a natural aversion to it mainly because they don't consider it very fun, and also because they recognize the danger of getting warped into it. I was fortunate(or rather unfortunate) that I started playing RS over 10 years ago when it was quite small and I actually grew with the game(in a number of ways), I can't imagine joining now and having all this inexhaustible content in front of me. That's probably off-putting to new players. If I had never joined Rs, I certainly would not join it today if given the chance.

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What on earth are you people rambling on and on about. The game HAS BECOME grind based?! If anything it has gone the exact opposite of it. I have been playing this lovely game since 2001 or early 2002, can't really remember when I started with my first account.

If you have not trained your rune pure at black knights in wildy maze or trained your lvl 1(or 10) def pure at wizards or similar activities in RSC then you have no earthly idea what a proper grind is. XP has become so easy to mass, it is ridiculous, it is indeed a far cry from grindy. I remember distinctly when getting 20k strength xp an hour was a GREAT RESULT.

 

 

I think the main issue why this topic has been discussed for 5 pages arguing the same point is a difference in generations of players in RS:

 

- In early RSC most people who played as myself were young people, exploring the interwebs and its wonders. We didn't really bother with that much xp, because travelling to high wilderness and seeing how people kill greater demons was a huge rush by itself.

 

- Now going into RS2 and after that RS3 (EOC RS) a number of players from the early days have remained with RS, but a lot of new youngsters have come in to play.

 

- Older players like myself can appreciate the changes the game has gone through and we enjoy the grind without the instant gratification. I also take great pleasure in trying to find the most efficicent methods of doing things in regards to time spent on RS and time/energy spent IRL

 

- Younger players have been brought up on instant gratification mentality and the upbrining that the world should and indeed does, revolve around them. (which is not the case by the way. It also is not the player's fault, it is just the way society as a whole has changed over the last 12 years)

 

- If you have been playing games like COD and whatnot, it is easy to see how your definition of 'fun' differs from mine. You can easily finish COD on first 3 difficulty levels in a day, 2 days at max. But RS has never been that kind of a game. It is a MMORPG - the game type itself means a lot of time invested, and the time invested grows exponentially, while the actual rewards decreas exponentially

 

All in all, this is not a discussion of grind vs fun. It is purely a clash of generations, because RS will always have in it's core a huge grind factor. Which is why I enjoy it a lot more than WOW. You can't really complete RS and that is the whole beauty of it to me.

 

 

And to all you nay-sayers that RS will die. - No it will not, I have heard it so many times I don't even see these posts anymore.

 

OT:

I think it was a wonderful statement from Jagex. Working in a big international corporations, to see a statement acknowledging their mistakes is a miracle beyond finding proof of ETs....

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I'll probably give a point-by-point response tomorrow, but in the mean time I'll just restate that in the past, yes, there was no way to "complete" RS. People like Zezima were the only ones thought to have completed it, and they were extreme outliers. But nowadays...

 

You can't really complete RS and that is the whole beauty of it to me.

 

...there is literally a cape called the "completionist cape." People obtain it every day.

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I'll probably give a point-by-point response tomorrow, but in the mean time I'll just restate that in the past, yes, there was no way to "complete" RS. People like Zezima were the only ones thought to have completed it, and they were extreme outliers. But nowadays...

 

You can't really complete RS and that is the whole beauty of it to me.

 

...there is literally a cape called the "completionist cape." People obtain it every day.

 

.....yeah that was really smart of you, except for the fact that people also need to RE-OBTAIN the cape every month atleast.... So no, you can't complete RS. If you obtain that lovely cape and come back in 6 months you will find that there a few more things you need to do yet again to feel like you have "completed" the game. So don't bring up that completionist cape stuff, that is BS

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You can only complete the game in front of you. I'm not going to walk up to a guy in a comp cape and say "Hey, take it off because there's a quest coming out in four weeks time." What an asinine argument.

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I'll probably give a point-by-point response tomorrow, but in the mean time I'll just restate that in the past, yes, there was no way to "complete" RS. People like Zezima were the only ones thought to have completed it, and they were extreme outliers. But nowadays...

 

You can't really complete RS and that is the whole beauty of it to me.

 

...there is literally a cape called the "completionist cape." People obtain it every day.

 

.....yeah that was really smart of you

 

Thanks I made myself lol when I posted it :P

 

My point still stands though. Future updates are irrelevant.

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I am just hoping that Jagex actually will show in action that they stand for what they say here. I still believe, strongly, in Jagex. But can't they just remove those bots now? I mean, certainly they are fewer now than before, but they're still way too many. A proper update to make sure bots doesn't work in the game anymore and the final of the elf quest series in this year and I'm satisfied.

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Add me if you so wish: SwreeTak

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You can only complete the game in front of you. I'm not going to walk up to a guy in a comp cape and say "Hey, take it off because there's a quest coming out in four weeks time." What an asinine argument.

^^thank you, I learnt a new word today. Had to google it just in case. :)

My point still stands though. Future updates are irrelevant.

 

Yeah I'm just gonna have to agree to disagree with both of you and call it a day. I am not an experienced internet warrior.

 

In my mind, the only person who is coming close to truely completing the game is SUOMI, as soon as he hits that magic 5B mark, I will be glad to say that there is indeed one guy who has completed the game, irrelevant to future updates.

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In my mind, the only person who is coming close to truely completing the game is SUOMI, as soon as he hits that magic 5B mark, I will be glad to say that there is indeed one guy who has completed the game, irrelevant to future updates.

 

But at what cost? His friends, family, life?

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Runescape player since 6th November, 2003

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