I’ve finally figured it out! The difference between the Aion grind and the EQ grind – the only other game I’ve ever really experienced what is labelled a “grind”. I was reading back through The Dark Knights blog and read the following comment:
I figured I’d give the game another shot, I mean… Aion was fun, but I haven’t seen a grind like that since EQ1, and I didn’t like it then, still not a big fan.
BAM! Like someone elses palm to my forehead, it hit me. Yes Aion is a grind, although I haven’t experienced even the worst of it (apparently) at level 22, but so was EQ. And I loved EQ right? I played it for 5 years straight. It cost me all my sick days, nearly a job or two and certainly inhibited my ability to look for said jobs when I was out of work. Evercrack was certainly a correct rename when it came to me.
So what’s the difference?
I don’t know what it was about that comment that made me remember it, but the EQ grind was done in… are you ready for it?… a group!! OMG that’s the difference? A GROUP!
For the longest time I was guild-less and fancy free. I had my sights firmly set on joining Talisman, the biggest raiding guild there was on my server at the time and was not going to join anything less. Which meant I didn’t have any friends or guild mates to help me along as I leveled. Yet level I did. How? In GROUPS!
You couldn’t solo in EQ, what are you, nuts? Oh no no, you zoned into which ever area was suitable for you at the time, sat your ass down at the zone entrance and proceeded to beg, grovel and plead for a spot in an existing group. You always wanted the group with the best spot, the area that had a never ending stream of mobs at your disposal. You’d settle for a group in a lesser spot, all the while still keeping your eye on the groups in the prime locations in case one of their members dropped off unexpectedly.
Hell, every now and then there’d be a few nut balls at the entrance that would be all like, “Hey, we don’t need them man, we can start our own group” and you’d group up (usually after at least an hour of waiting) and try to find a spot where you could pick off stragglers from another groups area without incurring too much of said other groups wrath for kill stealing.
Your group ‘camped’ an area. And like you would expect with the word camping, you found the ideal spot, you pitched your tents, or in the case of EQ, you’re casters sat down with a book open in their face, while the leader or most agile member of the group went out hunting to return with your dinner.
It was… awesome!
You didn’t have to know anyone. Groups weren’t consistent. Guilds didn’t run together all the time, some did, most didn’t at the beginning. I’m thinking back to the days of Overthere. I’m talking about the zone Overthere, not just randomly pointing around my living room expecting you to know where I mean. The wide, open, grassy zone with those awesome birds that were easy to kill and gave nice XP. The Sarnaks that always dropped more coin…
For some reason when I think of grinding, I see there and “DC” I think the zone was called. I can’t remember what DC stood for, I just remember you all camped a section of the wall that was the dungeon in the middle. Big zone, had to have levitate to make it to the middle? Tunnels with Spiders and big Giants all around? @Moochew will reply in the comments with the name of the zone I’m sure…
Anyway, this epiphany that was the realisation of the differences between the two games is also part of my answer as to what hasn’t grabbed me with Aion. There’s no real grouping! Sure there is for certain sections or hard quests, but over all, the majority of your time is spent solo leveling until you reach a point in which you are forced to skip or swallow your pride and ask for help. That’s the difference. After WoW, everyone is so used to being able to solo, the thought of grouping just because, well, doesn’t exist anymore.
I actually miss that aspect of EQ. The requirement to group was a pain at the time. I mean we all secretly despised the Bars and Druids who could solo effectively right? But even I, as one of those Druids, chose to level my entire life in a group over solo. Why? Because I enjoy the people. I hated the hours on end waiting to be with the people, but once I was with the people, I was oh so happy.
*pauses and thinks* Then again, going back to the days of EQ, there were less tools playing the game, hell there were less people overall playing MMO’s. It wasn’t as mainstream as it is today courtesy of WoW. You might get one bad group member, which really, only united other members of the group as they sat there bitching and whispering to one another about how sucky he was. Then, when he’d leave, you’d all rejoice and the bond only grew. And replacing group members wasn’t like it is today – there was an endless stream of wall flowers just anxiously waiting for you to pick them over everyone else.
If you spent any length of time in a particular zone, you got to know the regulars and chat would be filled with “Oh hi xxxx, how are you?”. If you were really well known, a simple LFG announcement from you would result in a wave of “zomg it’s xxx hihihi” responses from the zone over. Then of course you had the morons who thought they were that someone special and annoyed us all with their refusal to stop speaking.
All in all, the leveling experience in EQ brings back some of my fondest memories in game. And that is the difference (for me) between the grind that was EQ, and the grind that is Aion. I don’t know anyone in game outside of my WoW friends and of course Moochew. After the torture that was WoW pugs, I’m scarred for life (or at least for the next few years) so don’t really venture out of that familiar circle of sane and pleasant people. And thus, my time in Aion is lonely.
Lonely because my friends have all abandoned me. And lonely because there’s not as much grouping, or grouping is limited to the time you need them, so you don’t really meet any new friends.
Will this get any different as I level up? I hope so. But even it does, how willing will I be to stick my head up and say hello. After 5+ years of solo/friendship only play, I’m all rusty when it comes to just “/1 Ranger LFG”….
OMG, you’ve found it! That is so true; in many ways EQ was a much more social game because of the forced grouping. Of course, it sucked when you couldn’t get a group, because you could sit around for 2-3 hours looking for one. Luckily, since I played a shaman for 3 years, then a bard for another 3+ years, I always had the option to solo, albeit I soloed much better on my bard! But for classes who weren’t able to effectively solo, there was the potential for multiple hours wasted looking for a group, while accomplishing absolutely nothing..
When WoW came along, with the ability to solo all the way to max level, people loved it or hated it. It meant you logged on and could actually DO something from the moment you logged on. This had positives and negatives to it. The positive was at a personal level for the player, not wasting too much time. The negative was that players could reach max level and NEVER have worked ina group. New players to MMO’s had no concept of how to work together effectively in a group (which was pretty much for instances only) and for veterans of EQ, it was extremely frustrating to deal with these people who only understood how to solo.
Even to this day, I think WoW PuGs are significantly worse in the average skill level than EQ was due to the enforced grouping through the entire levelling process.
Oh, and it was “DL” (Dreadlands) not DC. Karnor’s Castle was in the middle of the zone, and everyone ran to it, lined up along the wall, and stayed there shouting out the , LFG. It was like getting picked for a team sport at school; al the people line up, and the “teams” picked the best first, while the poor or unknown players were left out in the cold.
But yes, MMO’s are meant to be social games to a degree, but the ability for players to solo most of the way reduces the social interaction to listening to the drivel in the world or zone channels. You didn’t get a chance to form random friendships with people from a group, and then start to regularly hang out. EQ really had a different approach, and I know at times I still look back at it with nostalgia. The “grind” really wasn’t as bad when you were in a good group, chain pulling mobs, compared to Aion’s grind which lacks that social setting to reduce the drag of grinding.
“The “grind” really wasn’t as bad when you were in a good group, chain pulling mobs, compared to Aion’s grind which lacks that social setting to reduce the drag of grinding.”
So totally true!! I remember being in a coule of good groups and the next ding wasn’t as important as just praying the group didn’t break up LOL.
And yes, Dreadlands! Thankyou! I always akin that to school team sports too ROFL
Well other than my totally awesome offer that’s still on the table, I will say that there are some major changes that take place in the group experience that Aion provides.
Grouping becomes a great thing… firstly you get instances that you can group in. There is a level 25 instance you can do every 18 hours thats pretty fun… then at 30 you get Fire Temple – I believe Asmo gets it as well… it can be started every 30 minutes and does require a group to do. There are 5-6 mini bosses throughout the instance as well as a main boss – usually groups will commit to doing it several times in the same night and many groups will go back and grind it later. The main boss drops class weapons that are orange and exceedingly useful. Each mini boss drops special items as well. The whole instance is full of elites so the experience is pretty good early on. When you get to high 30s, for Asmos (I believe) is killing mau’s?? well in Elyos its Kaidan HQ – all mobs are elites, non instance that you can go to anytime. So basically what I am trying to say is that the items offered for higher levels are harder to get and you need a group for almost all of them. The bosses that drop them only drop them rarely and are usually surrounded by mobs that give great experience. Since 30+ my friend list has tripled and there are multiple people that I play with throughout the week. Sometimes there are pickup members in a group but 3-4 out of 6 usually have played together before.
I really can’t try and motivate the lower level grind… it’s rough, but 30+ has much more to offer in this game and I believe what it offers you will find to your liking.
Not sure if this helps, but the closer to endgame you get – the more the community becomes apparent. Have a good one =)
imo, there are several things (you may not have mentioned) that are currently contributing to a poor aion grouping experience.
1. Lack of a proper channel for /LFG chat. /LFG is global, so you’re forced to not only sit through numerous /LFGs for other zones, but it has also quickly become the “let’s chat” channel.
2. Lack of proper group reward system. There is NO bonus for grouping in terms of XP, and I noticed that there was a bit of a *penalty* for AP when grouping last night. (Was getting 13 AP for a specific mob solo, another 31 joined my group and it went to 4 for me, 5 for him (different ranks)). Also, the need/greed system is lamented by most players, since a “pass” means “never roll”, which means people don’t generally “pass” unless they don’t want the item even to sell.
3. Classes don’t compliment each other as well as they do in other RPGs, imo.
Templars seem to have a hard time keeping aggro off of the rest of the party, which seems to be getting worse as I level. I auto-attacked an elite mob from full health to death, used my one skill to reduce enmity, and the templar still couldn’t pull the aggro off me. (after letting the templar pull and get in the first couple hits). Gladiators are constantly breaking sorc CC, with aoe skills (dont know why, must be part of their main dps). One of my legion buddies refuses to party with rangers because he believes they pull adds too much. Two assassins are forced to share runes (which is unnecessary and hard to organize, usually reducing overall DPS and losing out on stuns)
I don’t have any argument here other than “this is why I agree”. As someone who doesn’t mind joining PUGs to get things done, I think these factors contribute to less people wanting to group quest/group grind.
In almost any other MMO, there’s simply more benefit to grouping imo. People I knew in wow leveled faster for finding groups and “quest linking” even regular quests for a few hours. I feel penalized in kinah, XP, and AP when I’m grouping, unless it’s a full group and we’re killing elite mobs.
I love pugging
Even the horrible groups aren’t that bad, most understand after the second wipe if you’re out. I figure it’s easier to block people now when the Soul Heals are a bit cheaper than to find out they’re a horrible player when it costs more. Plus you never know who you will meet.
Also, bad groups provide me with a chance to try thinking outside the normal ways of healing, it’s more like healing in pvp, not just the tank is taking damage heh.
I havn’t found the groups to be all that bad. There is usually a huge gap between the “get its” and the “just dont get its”. Some people are just terribad at their class, but they usually die a bunch, get angry, and drop. Most glads I have grouped with have been idiots. They have an aoe skill that has around a 5 second cooldown and they spam it in between their combos (thus breaking CC and pissing off sorcs and rangers). Chanters (having been one myself) also seem to have no concept of how to deal with their heals. They either never heal at all, or they overheal and waste the cleric’s mana. Really all they should do is heal other group members if needed, so the Cleric can focus on the tank, and apply their HoT to the tank and anyone that needs it (Chanters HoT is slightly better than the Cleric’s and they don’t stack…so save your Cleric their mana for better stuff). They also have no idea how to order mantras so that they dont cycle on and off when there are multiple Chanters in the party. Those tend to be my typical gripes. Other than that though the groups have been fun and well informed.
Man this post brings back so many fond memories. I played EQ for 4+ years and got in on one of the new servers that they had stood up, The Tribunal. I absolutely freaking loved (!!!) Karnor’s Castle in EQ. After playing as a Paladin, then a Druid (loved those dwarves outside Kaladim near the docks ~ awesome xp when you could kite 3 at a time) I finally settled on an Enchanter. My days of hours long “LFG” were no more. And even when I did have to look for a Group I could sit up in the nexus and make tons of cash selling CRACK (KEI). Ah the glory days. That game ruined me for every MMO after. I don’t think that anything can compare. Sure, there’s probably better out there, but none of them will ever give me that “first time” feel again.
But you’re absolutely correct in your assessment Alexan. Even though you don’t come out and say it, I think WoW ruined the genre with it’s dumbed down content. And I don’t mean “dumb” as in stupid. I mean that they made the game easier. You didn’t have to really think too much or come up with elaborate strategies to take down certain mobs. I mean, I understand why they did it, and that it was a boon to the casual player but it absolutely ruined the genre in my opinion. Now, everyone wants the easy game that everyone can solo to the top. It took away that NEED for community. Like you mentioned it had it’s pros and cons, but I think the pros outweighed the cons in every way.