Raiding vs. tabletopping

[ExploderWizard]

Thanks for elaborating on my point - you need a couple of months of grinding 24/7 to get the item.

WoW is about grinding, DnD is about having fun.

Ok, that last sentence sounded really stupid and superficial, but as two really hardcore friends of mine said - the moment 3-4 of their guild mates had the top tier items they quit within 1-4 weeks due to burnout and lack of reason to play the game. (This happened before they changed raiding to the current where you can see 95% of the raid game even if you are casual. Both of them raided 4-5 times every week for 5-6 hours).

Before the recent changes the vast majority of players didn't ever see endgame raids. Presumeably they still were having fun if they continued to pay to play. You can make WOW all about the grinding the same as you can make D&D nothing more than a skirmish combat game.

I would say its less about the games themselves and more about what a player wants out them.

I can have fun in WOW without raiding or the endless pursuit of gear. I only have 1 toon out of many that I bother about raid related stuff. For me raiding is just a way to see the endgame content and actually get to participate in the ongoing storyline. Once I have seen the raids/ bosses, killed them and taken thier stuff I don't need to keep coming back with other toons to do the same thing.

 

[Festivus]

I've been in game sessions ranging from 3 hours to 8. But I don't play WoW or any other MMO. How long do raids tend to last? I have a sense you can play a short raid in less than half an hour. I'm looking for the differences in what appeals for MMOs vs. tabletop RPGs, so I can play to the strengths of face-to-face gaming, and not try to compete with multi-million dollar technology.

I used to play Everquest... for several years. Everquest was all about getting equipment from raiding (at least at first). Later, it became about getting faction (to be able to get better equipment). Raids would take anywhere from a few hours (mostly coordination and buffing time) to a weekend (Temple of Veeshan - complex tactics, zone entirely full of dragons) to accomplish, and it was mostly about figuring out the best tactics and mix of roles to handle the situation. It took me 6 years to realize that I was just a hamster on a wheel, grinding up experience and factions so that I could get the next big item on the list.

When WoW came out, I beta tested it but never bought it... initially. Instead of buying that I moved to Neverwinter Nights... with tons of content and a DM client I ran a campaign in that for a couple years. Then my neice told me about the roleplay WoW server, which sounded appealing. I played it for a bit but found that it was very similar to Everquest... it all came down to gear. The story in WoW really is great, if you stop to play through it and read everything... tons of story. I was getting sucked into my hunter's character but then starting finding out that I wasn't effective on raids, mainly because of my stuff. So I stopped playing WoW too. There are shorter raids in WoW, things that only take a half hour to clear but the motiviation for them isn't really story driven, and not what I was looking for.

Now, it's Dragon Age, very immersive, not at all about the fight, or the stuff... the story. I wish it was multi-player and I wish it had a DM client, I would drop tabletop for that in a heartbeat. So if you were looking for something to bring to the table, take a look at Dragon Age... there are story reasons the combats happen, not that they just happen.

If you were looking for aspects that appeal the MMORPG players, I would say to use more environmental things that affect the combat: For example, I had this idea for a fight in a wind tunnel against Belkers, where you could, as a minor action, make acrobatics or atheletic checks to control your movement rate up or down, and your weight actually factored into the fight (too light, you go up, too heavy, you go down). I can recall a number of fights where the environment played a role in the combat: Fight in an acid pit against a black dragon, or fighting on floating rocks (don't fall off!). I would also add in unexpected things. Have a trigger point set up at 1/2 hit points to have something happen, again at 1/4.

 

[pogre]

I am starting to understand why some groups have lost players to WoW. Sounds like fun. I have one player that plays WoW, but he would never give up a gaming session to play WoW. I have never played it, because of time sink. I try to focus my gaming "free" time on writing, painting miniatures, and creating terrain.

I know my limitations - I already spend too much time on messageboards - I would play WoW silly and never get anything else done!

 

[Saeviomagy]

Actually, Umbran, on point 1 I'm actually loving the lingo. I can suss out most of what it means, and it's a delight seeing a slightly different facet of the gamer community. Also, the fact that blargney jumped in to mention D&D Online, and used different lingo. It's kinda awesome.

Thanks for the info, everyone. Do MMOs have any sort of narrative aspect? I mean, is WoW just raiding in dungeons, or do they have adventures where there's a villain actively doing something you need to thwart? How much plot is there?

For wow, most characters start experiencing narrative as soon as (or even sometimes before) they leave the starting areas. Every race has multiple enemies in their starting area which lead on in a chain of quests and zones to end up tying in to a raid dungeon.

Unfortunately, with the game progressing, some of the really cool storylines are effectively becoming lost, because they require entering specific dungeons or taking on foes that require a raid to defeat. With the pace and ease of levelling, it can be very difficult to find a group that actually want to do a given dungeon.

Unfortunately blizzard want to force people to continue upgrading their gear, so there is no long-lasting incentive for people to do these quests.

As to why noone talks about this stuff? Well, it's like talking about a movie that not everyone has seen yet. If I tell you the entire dwarven storylines, you don't get to experience it yourself. That, combined with the stigma that online gaming gets in these forums (ie - when a tabletop game is being described as computer-gamey, it's almost always a negative point) produces a don't ask, don't tell atmosphere.

 

[Saeviomagy]

If you were looking for aspects that appeal the MMORPG players, I would say to use more environmental things that affect the combat: For example, I had this idea for a fight in a wind tunnel against Belkers, where you could, as a minor action, make acrobatics or atheletic checks to control your movement rate up or down, and your weight actually factored into the fight (too light, you go up, too heavy, you go down). I can recall a number of fights where the environment played a role in the combat: Fight in an acid pit against a black dragon, or fighting on floating rocks (don't fall off!). I would also add in unexpected things. Have a trigger point set up at 1/2 hit points to have something happen, again at 1/4.

There's definately tons of things to be learnt from MMOs regarding interesting encounter design. Phased fights to keep solos fresh and avoid grind, unusual interactions (baddies who power up from terrain features that can be destroyed, baddies that absorb their allies, groups of creatures who absorb power from each other on destruction becoming progressively more powerful), rules that force party roles to swap (ie - a fight contains something that will make your party defender squishy but high damaging, and your controller extremely tough and able to punish foes for ignoring him).

The list goes on.

There's some to be learnt regarding campaign construction too. Each WOW race starts by fighting some sort of common creature that is invading their homeland, thwarts some major plans of theirs then finds why that creature is there, leading up to some world-threatening uber-baddie.

 

[Dannager]

Thanks for elaborating on my point - you need a couple of months of grinding 24/7 to get the item.

Again, this isn't true. You need to spend about a half hour a day (or less) running a random instance, plus your weekly raid with your guild. This probably translates out to no more than 6 hours a week, which really isn't that outrageous for a hobby - you probably spend more time on D&D. You can certainly spend more time than this to get it faster (farming more gold to buy the Saronite from others, for instance), but it's not necessary to get it within a couple of months.

My whole point here is that both D&D and WoW are completely legitimate games that are about social experiences, having fun, and feeling like you've accomplished something without actually accomplishing anything practical. There are games out there which are about mindless grinding. WoW is not one of them. WoW is actually a surprisingly excellent game, which is why it has so many subscribers.

That said, don't stop playing D&D.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I find it ironic that when Blizzard created a multiplicity of tools to alleviate and remove grinding..... that's when people quit playing and dismissed the entire game as a grind.

That's some ju-jitsu rationalization there.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I find it ironic that when Blizzard created a multiplicity of tools to alleviate and remove grinding..... that's when people quit playing and dismissed the entire game as a grind.

That's some ju-jitsu rationalization there.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I find it ironic that when Blizzard created a multiplicity of tools to alleviate and remove grinding..... that's when people quit playing and dismissed the entire game as a grind.

That's some ju-jitsu rationalization there.

What tools are you referring to?

 

[Bathnor]

As for the narrative aspect of MMOs, I think FFXI wins hands down. They have quests and missions with cut scenes that put you as one of the main characters. It used to be not very solo friendly, but they have changed that over the years. There's a raid in FFXI that a bunch of people tried to do, it took them 18 hours and they didin't kill it. (It's name escapes me ATM)

The Raiding in WoW has gotten easier and easier over the years. Thats why i quit. I was sick of everything getting easier.