The Journey - Is It Still Wanted?

[Preypacer]

I think a lot of people look back at their levelling experiences in FFXI with huge nostalgia bifocals. FFXI's grind was tedious and obnoxious back in the day. But, I do agree that there is a journey to be made from level 1 to level cap. Yoshida's thought process of bringing friends into the game and zerging them to the cap is disheartening.

Nope. No bifocals. No "rose colored glasses".

The thing that needs to be understood here is that someone's perceptions arise from their expectations, or their goals.

If you notice - most people (not all, but most in my experience) who complain about leveling being too much of a grind and who want to PL to level cap are focused only on one thing: End Game. That's what they're playing the game for. They don't care about the journey and, in some cases, would actually prefer it didn't exist so they could jump into end-game type content from day 1. I've seen such sentiments stated myriad times, across many MMOs.

If a MMO came out that had no journey, no levels, no progression and everyone started "at level cap" and could jump straight into killing raid bosses for better gear or be competitive in PvP against "vets", they'd be in heaven and would feel "the perfect MMO" had finally been achieved.

For all intents and purposes, that type of player will would PL their way through the game with absolutely zero interest in experiencing, much less enjoying the journey 'cause they couldn't care less about it.

'course some of them are so wrapped up in themselves and what they want, that they never understand that progression, leveling and such are as much part of the MMO experience - even more, if you look at it in terms of where the most content is - as end game. To them, the 10%-20% of content that compromises endgame is 100% of "what the game is all about."

So, that type will never desire nor enjoy the journey and it will always feel like an unbearable grind to them. Because that's not where their head is.

On the other hand, those who enjoy the journey, who enjoy going to the different camps, grouping up with people and killing mobs for hours, socializing, exploring and such are less likely to find "the grind" unbearable at all. Some don't see it as a grind in the first place, because it's all part of the experience. They are playing the game for very different reasons, with very different expectations. End game is important, but they'll get there when they get there. There's plenty to be done before they reach that point.

For myself, I hardly ever felt FFXI was a grind because whatever I was doing was pretty much always what I was in the mood to do. If I didn't find it enjoyable, and it wasn't "mandatory" in order to accomplish a larger goal, then I just didn't worry about it. I genuinely enjoyed xp parties, even those that went on for hours. To me, it wasn't about "grinding xp as fast as possible." It was about hanging out with a group of people for an hour or two, or three, chatting, joking around and having some fun killing mobs, getting through some close-calls. Killing mobs and getting xp just happened to be what we were doing in the process. And there were many people I met who were like that. If someone died? No big deal. It's just xp. You get it back. We'd invested possibly hundreds of hours into the game and were likely to invest many more, so an extra 30 minutes to get back some lost xp due to the occasional bad pull was not a big deal.

It was always funny to see the contrast in personality when we'd get someone in our pt who was from the former group - the power-levelers who hate grinding xp. We'd be talking and having fun while xp'ing, and the grinders would be fussing about their xp/hr constantly, wanting to move to areas with tougher mobs so we could get more xp per kill. They'd complain, occasionally, that everyone was talking too much, some flat out telling us to stfu and concentrate on killing 'cause their xp wasn't coming fast enough. They'd eventually leave our group (usually immediately after leveling, of course) and go off to find some other party. Occasionally they were booted for being obnoxious.

Personally, I was always rather agitated by those people. That they were so obsessed over leveling as fast as possible, that they couldn't even enjoy themselves in the process was their own issue. I can't help how another person perceives something. When it annoyed me was when they didn't want anyone else around them having fun either. We had to shut up because they werent' getting xp fast enough. "Less lip flapping. More killing", as one such person repeatedly said, in between telling us to "shut our mouths", before we found a replacement and booted them. Apparently our only purpose there was to help them level faster. Of course. -eye roll-

But anyway... the point is, that when people appeal to incredulity by making assertions such as "those who say they enjoyed the grind are seeing through bifocals" or "rose colored glasses" are really not "hitting any nail on the head". They're judging others through their own bias. "I didn't think grinding levels was fun, so there's no way those other people did either. They're just seeing through nostalgia goggles". No. We're really not. We just didn't have the same approach to or mentality about the game.