Why Play D&D?

[Diamond Cross]

I didn't read the whole thread so I don't know if these have been mention.

Personally, there are many things I love about these games. There are some amazing things to see.

But here are the things I don't like about WoW:

The arses who try to kill your toon just because and then laugh at you.

The PVP is impossible to play. At least for me.

You have to have the right build in order to dish out the maximum damage possible to beat your opponent.

Toons are often cookie cutter characters and you don't have to be that way in an RPG.

You have to join a guild in order to be part of a large group in order to get a chance at the high tier armor and weapons that you're supposed to have or you're nothing. Then some guilds demand that you have to have an exact build that does a certain amount of damage and that you be placed in a singular role as they dictate.

If something goes wrong it's always the healer's fault.

You have to grind monsters for hours in order to level.

And after a long time it gets very repetitive. Such as in order to complete a quest you have to thirty wolfs for examples.

The super elite monsters that you just can't kill on your own or unless you're several levels higher.

The incredible amounts of grinding to get anything done or anything good. Or in order to make a lot of money you have to spend several hours a day gathering something like ore, and you have to spend ungodly amounts of money to make ungodly amounts of parts to make an item.

And at least in particular of WoW, the poo quests have to go. Somebody there has a poo fetish.

The gold spammers and the people who hack into your accounts in order to steal your stuff to make money.

And finally, the most important thing, is that MMORPGs are not true role playing games, they are primarily, first and foremost, strategy games.

And this is a complaint I have in particular about CRPGS in general, if the computer doesn't want you to do something or go somewhere, you just can't do it. In WoW you can't climb a mountain or a wall, you have to get a flying mount to go over them.

 

[Sunseeker]

But here are the things I don't like about WoW:

The arses who try to kill your toon just because and then laugh at you.

You have to have the right build in order to dish out the maximum damage possible to beat your opponent.

You have to join a guild in order to be part of a large group in order to get a chance at the high tier armor and weapons that you're supposed to have or you're nothing. Then some guilds demand that you have to have an exact build that does a certain amount of damage and that you be placed in a singular role as they dictate.

If something goes wrong it's always the healer's fault.

You have to grind monsters for hours in order to level.

And after a long time it gets very repetitive. Such as in order to complete a quest you have to thirty wolfs for examples.

The super elite monsters that you just can't kill on your own or unless you're several levels higher.

The incredible amounts of grinding to get anything done or anything good. Or in order to make a lot of money you have to spend several hours a day gathering something like ore, and you have to spend ungodly amounts of money to make ungodly amounts of parts to make an item.

All of these sound like issues that any RPG has as well.
The jerk who is secretly "evil" and jokes about stabbing people in the back and stealing stuff.
The guy who builds the weird, ultra-hybird/multi-classer that does these weird things but overall, takes "group" out of group play.
The groups who demand you play X class and X race because the group lacks that, or "that race woudnlt be that".
It's ALWAYS the healer's fault.
Do you play D&D for minutes? We tend to play for hours.
Repetitive is a design issue, DMs can fall prey to this too.
Aren't we supported to have tough fights?
Really, WoW's grinding is very small. In fact compared to most games, WoW is incredibly quest-heavy and grinding is ineffective. In many MMOs, grinding is the ONLY way to effectivly level.

But at the end of the day, most of the problems are not problems with the game, they're problems with the players. And isn't that really the source of ANY problem? The players? It's up to us all to be good players, respectful people, when playing with others, be it at the table or at a computer.

And finally, the most important thing, is that MMORPGs are not true role playing games, they are primarily, first and foremost, strategy games.

And this is a complaint I have in particular about CRPGS in general, if the computer doesn't want you to do something or go somewhere, you just can't do it. In WoW you can't climb a mountain or a wall, you have to get a flying mount to go over them.

They'll get there someday I imagine.

 

[Zelda Themelin]

Well, WoW isn't really fun. I work seasonal jobs and wow is my unimployment time focus thing, so I don't loose my ability to concentrate into boring repeat things.

Wow and other games like it used to be occasinally fun for me, but that was few years back, now they just are feel like neverending grinds.


I might have few fun moments now and then , but they are short lived.

Roleplaying isnt always fun either. Sometimes it plain sucks, even with good group. Sometimes people my life are so full of other RL worries they can't get their imagination flowing and I can blame very same on me.


But when roleplaying games are fun, they are really fun. Computer game "fun" leaves me stressed, empty and drained, and sometimes with obsessive need to complite some pointless game-related task.

Not true for all computer games though, single play games with actual ending points can be fun. I enjoyed Dragon Age for example quite a lot.

Roleplaying games are fun because they dont' have some forced achieviment things. And you don't have to stare at screen all the time. And kill your elbow with constant mouse clicks. And have to take "crap" from group, since games like WoW are highly success focused. I am not even target of that crap, but it pisses me off when pople bother to whine about it to someone. In somewhere irrelevant like random heroic. You can use your imagination with roleplaying games. There you can't even do experimental character builds because they do crappy dps/heal/tank not so well. Your freedom even with your character is super-limited if you play social.

Oh yes and in roleplaying games you can choose your friends, I mean really. In MMO there is no escape from retards or just retardy moments which people in MM0 get lot easily.

I feel much more relaxed and happy when I play roleplaying games. With people I really want to hang with.

Computer games are ok, if you have free time and you don't have anything better to do, or that happens to be my best thing to do at moment. I would play much more tabletop rpg:s if I actually could get group together more often than week to two-weeks.

PvP in computer games is really disappointing unless you are into competive sport events (like arena and starcraft, I prefer starcraft). Then there are Battlegroud grinds, dueling (outside major cities at Wow) and ganking. If you try real world pvp server goes into major lag. You can barely do 40 man (max instance raid size) groupia and lag starts to happen.

Warhammer does pvp best, but it's quite grindy as well. More fun though IMO, but whatever rocks your boat.


And what is most important you can always play computer games, and if you miss them for few years you just find they are more pretty and more evolved. Whence if you take long breaks at tabletop rpg:s you might never get back, people get older, more lazy, more busy. Since they still are IMO far better entertaiment, at least potentially, you should enjoy them while you can.

Maybe one day computer games get better.... nah.

But I really would like to steal combat rutinies from some computer game. I make my choices and then I can watch fight on screen, turn based prolly.

I always wanted to marry old final fantasy tactics combat map and roleplaying. I find figuers clungy, nice to play with but totally inpractical in house with cats.
FFT is oldie and goldie, and I would surely take newer combat systems too.

Why oh, why nobody make that kinda program. Demand would be very easy to use, good appearance editing features and neat flashy combat effects. Those who don't want to see numbers could of course turn them off. I love seeing them, very rewarding in fake but funny way.


As to another thing, this new exp system in enworld remains me a bit about elite achievement system married to facebook y-I-am-your-friend. Maybe I am bitter, lol, since I never gonna be popular in internet. Mmh remains me of that youtube song "I wanna be internet celebrity".

 

[Zelda Themelin]

Really, WoW's grinding is very small. In fact compared to most games, WoW is incredibly quest-heavy and grinding is ineffective. In many MMOs, grinding is the ONLY way to effectivly level.
.

Seriously? I mean seriously? What WoW you play?
Endgame is nothing but grinding. Dailly quests, since you have prolly done everthing else at some point. Instance grinds, way to get most loot. Ok, now is end times for this add-on, and until cataclysms they are giving tiers off-bit easy. But Even in raids, which you prolly grind quite many times, unless you are very lucky or your guildies very nice you aren't going to get drops very easily. But if you are going to be nice back you still have to grind raid until everyone else gets theri gear too.


And to graft stuff you have to grind as well, raids, instances, rep, gold.


Yes, wow is not worst grindy game and you dont have to grind until max lv. And you just level alts, if you don't like endgame.


There are MM0.s lot worse what comes to grinding though. Final fantasy comes to mind, and Aeon. And I have heard about some eastern games
where grind would make us pampered europe/america gamers have quitck allergic reaction.

Still that doesn't make WoW:s grinding small, but since it's avoidable, it might feel to some player like that. There are forbidden means to avoid it (like e-buy, gold buying. leveling services). And then you can just avoid high-end raiding. And ignore trade chat for constant things like "lfm1 tank to grind heroics".

Oh, almost forget we do have Farmville. Remains me of those virtual pets that died if you didn't feed and pamper them - virtually of course.

It is just weird you don't see how grindy WoW is. Maybe experience with worst? Or maybe playstyle that avoids it somehow?
Or maybe you work for Blizzard and to try to recruit people to try it out

 

[Sunseeker]

Seriously? I mean seriously? What WoW you play?

I've played since TBC, leveling sucks, but WoW is anything but grindy.

There are MM0.s lot worse what comes to grinding though. Final fantasy comes to mind, and Aeon. And I have heard about some eastern games
where grind would make us pampered europe/america gamers have quitck allergic reaction.

99% of asian games will make the average Westerner have a heart attack with grinding.

Still that doesn't make WoW:s grinding small, but since it's avoidable, it might feel to some player like that. There are forbidden means to avoid it (like e-buy, gold buying. leveling services). And then you can just avoid high-end raiding. And ignore trade chat for constant things like "lfm1 tank to grind heroics".

With the introduction of the Dungeon Finder, almost all of that is gone. You simply put your name in a hat, and after a little wait, boom, insta dungeon. Not to mention this makes leveling CAKE, sure, you run the same dungeon 10 times, but you level at somewhere near triple or more the normal rate.

It is just weird you don't see how grindy WoW is. Maybe experience with worst? Or maybe playstyle that avoids it somehow?
Or maybe you work for Blizzard and to try to recruit people to try it out

Part of it is that I level only a few toons. Maybe one or two every 6 months. I then sit around and pamper one toon with lots of end-game raiding, which I find very enjoyable. Another part is I play with my girlfriend, she loves leveling(don't ask me why, I can't stand it), and that makes things more fun.

My girlfriend is the primary reason I may almost any game, including D&D, not for her mind you, but just because she encourages me to do it with her. I know, I'm damn lucky.

This is also why I tend to level my D&D games faster than others. Things start to feel grindy if the game is too static at one level.

 

[Minicol]

I have tried plenty of MMOs, and they all bored me to death after 2 months max. The ones which lasted more were the ones with cool graphics.

MMOs are way too rigid to be fun for me.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I can see that you have not noticed the recent change to the character builder, yet.

{of course, in practice, I am a major RPG book junkie so shelling out money was true either way . . . }

Oh, I've noticed it all right- kinda hard to miss it really, especially with all the furore about the launch of version 2.

Fortunately, 4Ed isn't my D&D, so after a certain selection of books, it's been free for me to play.

Which is good, since I'm one of the guys who answered "Colossal" in that thread about size of RPG collections.

 

[Zelda Themelin]

I've played since TBC, leveling sucks, but WoW is anything but grindy.

Ah, innocense of relativly new player. I've played since beta. Not activly though, I tend to do these half year drop outs, but I got back always when my life got boring.


The grinding is there ahright, it's however really forced at highest level. Leveling is not really grindy, it's just boring. And most of the quests are really pretty much 4 different type. I very rarely even read quest texts. Original reason for this is I used to play on on pvp server, and that was time when ganking in levelin areas (mainly around tarren mills, and after that certain jungle coast get really popular, and mind controlling people to run into lave in blackrock) you had to be very fast in taking and returning quests since you were going to die.


Blizzard did make some big changes into pvp after game evolved. Back in early versions pvp server people were trying to get massive "wars" to happen. That ended up crashing the server. Later patch you could no longer have honor from lower lv player and and blizzard introduced Battlegrouds.


Those changes killed real world pvp, only ones that remained were those griefers/gangarks who didnt' need other rewards to haress low levels.


Weird thing really, I used to like leveling more with gankers, I guess they made quests more exating. Yeh, it wasn't fun to do constant corpse runs, but it kinda brough up my fighting will.

Between beta-classic-tbc-wolk-cataclysm patch (and verious major patches), wow has changed quite a lot.

And leveling is actually faster and easier and there are more quests, and you don't have "dead" levels as far as quests go. Game has always tried to be balanced, success with this is constantly debated. However it has succesfully became more streamlined.

If wow was rpg. it feels like game system has gone through edition changes, and dm's have changed, but kept using staff and cracters from old dm:s.
Latest change iin gameplay is actually about as big as difference between D&D3 and D&D4. With similar goals, to simplify things, so that game would be easier to balance again.


And many players were crying bloody murder. Yeh, that was really big change. But wow players generally get more whiny about minor things too compared to d&D players. No-one seems to have that sort of great feelings toward, say WotC. Blizzard on the other hand. Yeh, both are ignoring you as person, but blizzard is actually running your game, and there is no real communication and changes come out of blue, and that said those blue posts and patch notes don't inform about everything. And there has been cases where important information concerning changes has just failed to apper anywhere until it's discovered in actuall play.

I think you are still in lucky spot where you don't simple feel the grindiness, you still think going over to same raid instances is fun. It's still called grinding raid instances, by all I know in wow at least.


But you have one very important thing, pleasant company to play with. And friend's happiness is catching sort.

And I am not sure you would under those circumstances feel the grind either, even in thos infamous asian games. Not for while, at least.

Grindy feeling, I've noticed is related to when you "have to" do something repentative you feel is boring to get to some (in this case immaterial) goal. Like doing some instance until that one item drops. Like having to max out reputation of some faction, to get some reward. Or get x amount of gold to get that awesome mount, or get some titansteel for your crafting. There are gold sellers because getting that gold is immensivly grindy. It takes lot of time. Many working adults don't have the time. WoW:s economy is too competive about time used. Success demands you play lot doing specific useful things in game, often very grindy things.

Or you can become Auchion House expert. Not all can make it work, I did that when I got bored at getting items/gold myself. It's basicly buy cheep, sell expansive.

All MMO:s are very grindy. That's how they keep customers. They can't come with real (interesting) content for millions. YOu aren't gathering for your gaming group you are creating for great number of people with various tastes. So they have go for basic human nature. Our need to compite and to gather. Then they paint this very simple basic setup with many "stories". But they arent' really effecting nothing, world doesn't change no matter what players do, you just get levels and stuff.

This is major differance say between Dragon age and WoW. Single play computer games always have had rather linear storylines. Perhaps spiced with some ahem "grinding" (sorry I rather like the word). This is missing from Dragon age it just has linear story, you can choose to do more quests than main plot requires and you get some rewards, but it's really more about getting more story.

Those games have shorter life-span. And if they were good sellers we get next part very soon. Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3 to come. Dragon age origins, dragon age the awakening, dragon age 2 to come.

Blizzard makes games with longer lifespan. But they have Diablo, Starcraft and WoW MMO. And WoW is pretty good MMO.

I think it's great we can have many possbilities of computer games to choose to.

Tabletop rpg:s fills a diffrent spot. No real person dm, can be great and suck the way those MMO:s do. When people loose their friends from tabletop gemes to some MMO, it's likely not only hobby they give up. MMO:s if played competitivly consume lot of time. They are addictive pretty much the same way slot machines are with little poker added. Fun comes from more complex reasons but addiction really from very similar reason than for those games. Not everyone playing MMO is unhealthily consumed by it. Some are honestly just having fun and are righfully insulted by such alligations.


If you want your players back from MMO to game table, best way to usually have it, is keep asking them to play, tell how awesome your game was. And wait. If they are addictive personalities they might never come back to play rgp:s at least not as often. They prolly just change their MMO when they get bored. And some will find they prefer that hobby over tabletop rpgs.

Back when I was kid we had this friend who started becoming elusive about our roleplaying. When comforted him about it regularly and he always gave this irritating answer "I can't neglect my duties for my computer". Yeh he seriously said that every damn time. It sounds more stupid in finnish. Ah, and then we got back at him hitting and throwing some pillows we called "his name here" simulators. We were 11 years old at time. And mind you that pillow war that followed was much much more fun than any roleplaying game.

 

[fba827]

Impossible!

I think the word you are looking for is: Inconceivable!

 

[Draksila]

Personally, I played WoW from the first Children's Week in 2005 to around May this year. I played it for two reasons: my regular gaming group had broken up and I was looking for roleplay, and I loved the lore established in Warcraft II and III. After roughly five years of play, here's why I quit.

1 - Blizzard has continuously bent its own lore over the table and done bad things to it while people watched. Seriously, you can tell when a new dev team is working the game by watching how much of the old lore they forget and replace with new stuff that clashes with established world setting history.

2 - Roleplay ceased to exist with the release of the first expansion. Back in the Vanilla WoW days, I could actually sit for hours on a pier in character with my guildmates and friends and have social parties or even develop personal story arcs. As raiding has become easier and more rewarding to those tempted by loot, however, even the guilds that advertise themselves as 'roleplay guilds' quit giving more than lipservice to their RP. It got so bad with WotLK that, on any RP server I played on, we couldn't even get more than a half dozen people to commit to getting together for one hour-long weekly guild meeting in character. And roleplay in a dungeon? I was ecstatic just to get everyone to comment once or twice in character.

3 - Endgame is boring. Granted, this is my own take on it and others might like loot gathering more than me. But what it comes down to is you grind X dungeons to get gear so you can grind Y raid to get gear so you can grind Z raid to get gear... and ultimately it's all about epeen. When you get that last, ultimate set of gear it's really for nothing. You've beaten everything out there, so your only choice is to grind out the stuff you've already done just to show that you're Billy Bad-butt. And this is coming from someone who was in a good raiding guild, had some outstanding gear, and knew his rotations well enough to be a valuable damage dealer.

4 - Expansions make all your hard work mean nothing. Seriously. The epic gear you had in Vanilla? The low-end trash in Outland was better than your raid-earned epic magic items. That high end gear from killing Illidan or Kael'thas in Outland? Made laughably petty by the stuff you got from farmers and fishermen in Northrend. I gaurantee it'll be that way again with Cataclysm.

5 - The world setting is not consistent. It's hard for me to care about killing Edwin VanCleef, Illidan Stormrage, or even the mighty Arthas when an hour later someone else is fighting him and next week I can just go back again and it's like I've never fought him. Don't get me wrong, from a video game frame of mind that's the norm and I like video games, but when I roleplay I want my efforts to mean something in context with the setting. If Arthas is dead then by gods he should be dead, not just momentarily lootable before respawning.

6 - No computer game using modern computing technology can do everything you can do with a few loose rules and your imagination. There are always artificial limits to your exploration, to your actions, to your choices when speaking to NPCs. As fun as WoW can be on its best days, it limits your imagination to what is possible within its lines of code.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating that everyone go out and cancel their WoW subscriptions. It's a fun game in its own right if you can work within its structure comfortably, and there's room for both MMOs and TT. It just got to where I personally could no longer ignore the elephants in the room and had to just let it go.

As a note, it's no better in other MMOs. I went from WoW to City of Heroes, DDO, and Guild Wars, and I had tried a few others before WoW. The most RP I found besides Vanilla WoW was City of Heroes, and it was very cliquish. In both WoW and CoH, even when you could find RP, it was always relegated to something you do with your usual suspects and not something that you do publicly to include interested passersby. There were exceptions to this, yes, but the vast majority of roleplayers didn't want to deal with anyone outside their own little circle. The best, most open roleplaying communities I found were in the original Neverwinter Nights. They also had the advantage of being DMed servers, so there was world consistency when the DMs ran their adventures and the artificial borders established by the program were a bit more flexible for the fact that the people maintaining the individual servers could alter things as they saw fit. Still, push come to shove, it still came down to being a grind-fest if there were no DM events planned and being artificially constrained by its programming.