Grinding is in the eye of the beholder. Some of the posts here have used the terms boring, tedious, etc. to describe grinding and that negative connotation may exist in the minds of most, but not for everyone. I define grinding as repetative tasking, without other adjectives. Boring? Depends on the player, some love grinding. IMHO all MMO lovers have enjoyed some level of grinding at some point. Many have grown weary of kill/collect/repeat tasks, but for some grinding is NOT a bad thing, it's what keeps them coming back for more. In Vanguard, one of my guildmates loves the diplomacy grind but has no interest in the crafting grind. He acknowledges that they're both grinds and while he finds crafting tedious, he can grind for hours using the same diplomacy decks over and over again. There are others who will repeat crafting work orders again and again, and just love it, but have no interest in killing the same thousands of creratures they killed in WoW. We each have our own individual grinding threshholds. Some are relatively limited, some aren't - I think that's neither good nor bad.
Playing a fun game = Repetitious acts in the presence of fun
Monopoly = Repeatedly going around the board, landing on the same properties, picking up the same cards.
Vanguard = Repeatedly traveling between the same locations per your level engaged in the repetitious act of killing X number of things or collecting X number of things.
Monopoly can take 8 hours per session.
Vanguard can take 2 hours per session
Monopoly = Fun
Vanguard = Grind
How often in the one, two, three or more decades you might've been playing Monopoly have you screamed about how tired you were going around the board, picking up the same cards, and so on? Why isn't going pass "Go" 100 times a noticeable grind? Because it's fun, when it ceases to be fun you might flip over the board because you've noticed you're grinding through doing a repetitious act to no means that interest you any longer.
Vanguard is a grind that keeps you doing the same thing over and over with no sufficient masking with 'fun', whether its kill X or collect Y quests; or running back and forth between your work station and taskmaster doing work orders.
All games employ repetitious acts, the ones that are fun are the ones where the means of the act justify the end result, and make you WANT to go through the repetitious act. It works on a tiny level such as a single quest and it's great reward, such as people going bonkers over a potion that turns you into a pirate in WoW, and not so much 4 silver in Vanguard for example; or on more spaced levels such as constantly working on a talent build that's a 'build' of your own every odd level instead of knowing you're choosing the same abilities as everyone else in Vanguard.
All there is to do in MMOs is to quest and level, quest and level. All games are goal-oriented, once that goal is achieved, the reward needs to be good or it wasn't fun. You have a lot more fun after the win of a football game that you were playing it. You might have fun after an individual play, but that's because you were rewarded with points that bring you closer to that 'win'.
Monopoly is no different, you want property, that's why it gets a tad more boring after all the property is bought up and you have less goals.
As much as I hate the Kill X and Collect Y quests of Vanguard, it'd be a lot more fun if the quest rewards were more inspired.
As much as I like the slower leveling, it'd be a lot more fun to achieve each new level if that whole 'freedom' tagline associated with the game applied to differentiating you from your class peers.
That isn't to say Vanguard fails entirely, my buddy had a blast after reaching level 16 and getting his Phoenix thing on his Shaman. I've enjoyed seeing how ridiculously high I might be able to raise my Lesser Giant Warrior's strength through point allocation several times a level and that keeps me going.
Anyway, Vanguard is a grind because as long as the most interesting thing 99% of the quests you get do is move your exp bar, same goes for work orders and civic diplomacy...then the game is a boring grind fest.
It isn't so difficult to understand what fun is and isn't, the problem is people trying to equate grinding to slower levelling. It's not, and challenge doesn't equate to boring. You can have you slower leveling and challenge without grinding and boredom. Remove the latter two, and combine slower leveling and challenge with fun. We could all appreciate that, right?
What is grinding and what not is very subjective. From my point of view it depends, first, how quick somebody wants to see an accomplishment, and second, how this person defines accomplishment. I just think the journey is the reward.
Maybe it's when the journey is not the reward. Or at least, not enough of it.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Grinding is what happens when you don't want to explore the land your on, and convince yourself you have to kill X amount of creatures to have fun.
Enjoying a game is exploring and finding diverse quests thats keeps the fun factor.
Grinding is also considered by a lot of people, as a "fun" way to play. Most disagree though, it all depends on your playing style. If your a very patient person, grinding wont seem tedious. If you like to see progress, exploring is for you.
If an npc or missive tells you to collect 20 amulets from the corpses of nether guards... is this grinding?
This is my take (and I think any person whos been in this genre for a number of years):
grinding: the act of fighting mobs over and over for xp and during said process "grinding" down the durability of your gear. Some people have it in their head that it's stemmed from "having your nose to the grind stone" but I don't believe this to be accurate. (actually the few people I had this discussion with for the latter meaning was in WoW chat and I'm pretty sure that it was their first MMO, lol)
Comments
Grinding = Repetitious acts in the absence of fun
Playing a fun game = Repetitious acts in the presence of fun
Monopoly = Repeatedly going around the board, landing on the same properties, picking up the same cards.
Vanguard = Repeatedly traveling between the same locations per your level engaged in the repetitious act of killing X number of things or collecting X number of things.
Monopoly can take 8 hours per session.
Vanguard can take 2 hours per session
Monopoly = Fun
Vanguard = Grind
How often in the one, two, three or more decades you might've been playing Monopoly have you screamed about how tired you were going around the board, picking up the same cards, and so on? Why isn't going pass "Go" 100 times a noticeable grind? Because it's fun, when it ceases to be fun you might flip over the board because you've noticed you're grinding through doing a repetitious act to no means that interest you any longer.
Vanguard is a grind that keeps you doing the same thing over and over with no sufficient masking with 'fun', whether its kill X or collect Y quests; or running back and forth between your work station and taskmaster doing work orders.
All games employ repetitious acts, the ones that are fun are the ones where the means of the act justify the end result, and make you WANT to go through the repetitious act. It works on a tiny level such as a single quest and it's great reward, such as people going bonkers over a potion that turns you into a pirate in WoW, and not so much 4 silver in Vanguard for example; or on more spaced levels such as constantly working on a talent build that's a 'build' of your own every odd level instead of knowing you're choosing the same abilities as everyone else in Vanguard.
All there is to do in MMOs is to quest and level, quest and level. All games are goal-oriented, once that goal is achieved, the reward needs to be good or it wasn't fun. You have a lot more fun after the win of a football game that you were playing it. You might have fun after an individual play, but that's because you were rewarded with points that bring you closer to that 'win'.
Monopoly is no different, you want property, that's why it gets a tad more boring after all the property is bought up and you have less goals.
As much as I hate the Kill X and Collect Y quests of Vanguard, it'd be a lot more fun if the quest rewards were more inspired.
As much as I like the slower leveling, it'd be a lot more fun to achieve each new level if that whole 'freedom' tagline associated with the game applied to differentiating you from your class peers.
That isn't to say Vanguard fails entirely, my buddy had a blast after reaching level 16 and getting his Phoenix thing on his Shaman. I've enjoyed seeing how ridiculously high I might be able to raise my Lesser Giant Warrior's strength through point allocation several times a level and that keeps me going.
Anyway, Vanguard is a grind because as long as the most interesting thing 99% of the quests you get do is move your exp bar, same goes for work orders and civic diplomacy...then the game is a boring grind fest.
It isn't so difficult to understand what fun is and isn't, the problem is people trying to equate grinding to slower levelling. It's not, and challenge doesn't equate to boring. You can have you slower leveling and challenge without grinding and boredom. Remove the latter two, and combine slower leveling and challenge with fun. We could all appreciate that, right?
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Grinding is what happens when you don't want to explore the land your on, and convince yourself you have to kill X amount of creatures to have fun.
Enjoying a game is exploring and finding diverse quests thats keeps the fun factor.
Grinding is also considered by a lot of people, as a "fun" way to play. Most disagree though, it all depends on your playing style. If your a very patient person, grinding wont seem tedious. If you like to see progress, exploring is for you.
This is my take (and I think any person whos been in this genre for a number of years):
grinding: the act of fighting mobs over and over for xp and during said process "grinding" down the durability of your gear. Some people have it in their head that it's stemmed from "having your nose to the grind stone" but I don't believe this to be accurate. (actually the few people I had this discussion with for the latter meaning was in WoW chat and I'm pretty sure that it was their first MMO, lol)