Grinding. It’s one of the ugliest aspects of MMORPGs, or RPGs in general. I remember reading an article about Ultima Online many many years ago, where the situation got so bad that one of the dungeons was actually running out of monsters. There were so many players inside that as soon as a critter spawned it was killed. Aside from monster extinction, grinding also saps the enjoyment out of games. While it’s true that players must put considerable effort (or pay a large amount of money) before they can get epic gear, pets or a high level, sometimes the requirements reach ridiculous proportions. That’s why Isaiah Cartwright, game designer for the upcoming Guild Wars 2, proudly showed off a graph showing what their game’s leveling curve will be, compared to the level curves of other MMORPGs. Here is said graph:
As you can see, the leveling curve in Guild Wars 2 is actually a line. Cartwright explains, “We expect content—not long, grindy progression—to be the deciding factor that keeps people playing our game. We want everyone to stick with Guild Wars 2 because our content is fun and enjoyable, not out of some dogged determination to slowly, slowly advance.”
Guild Wars 2: it’s not the size of your experience bar, it’s how much you enjoy the experience. Read Cartwright’s full post here.
[via Reddit]
