KTurner wrote:
Spoonless wrote:
Grinding is where you gather a party and head out to some overcrowded, remote location and then fight the same monster type again and again for a few hours in order to gain half a level or so, right? I mean, if you're lucky and your tank doesn't decide to leave after 20 minutes and then you spend another hour or so trying to find a replacement. And just when you find one, your healer has to take off. Then there's no healer so the tank you invited decides to join another group and then you give up and log out. Right?
My eye twitched just reading that, and ive never even played FFXI. (im assuming thats referencing ffxi...)
Sounds like SWG as well - pre-NGE.
You'd stand in line (yes, there were lines) for buffs and then head out to some remote spot with a group to kill stuff that would chew you up without buffs. God, I loved that game so much. This was back when MMOs felt like multiplayer games. The social interactions taking place while standing in line for buffs was crazy. You had dancers and musicians who would play music for tips (you'd join their group and listen to/watch them for a while and it would give you another buff). You had image designers who could change your character's appearance for a fee. You had doctors with their buffs and massive queues going in every direction. There were even crafters peddling armor and weapons, because that stuff deteriorated fast when you were grinding. In the meantime, people would sit around, talking, dueling, having a party while waiting for their group members to get buffed and join up.
Best part was when a Jedi showed up to get his buffs. With perma-death being in the game for that class, and Bounty Hunters able to take on bounties for Jedi players, a Jedi showing up would almost always end in a giant *********** of PvP, with one Jedi fending off a half dozen Bounty Hunters and other people joining in for some factional warfare (if the Bounty Hunters were flagged).
It was insane. Rose-tinted glasses aside, I have never experienced anything like that in any MMO since then. It was the magic of sandbox, but that sh*t died when the ADD generation started funneling money into the industry.
Edited, Jun 28th 2013 9:22pm by Mazra