Repetitve action = grind? Disagree. I can't think of a game in any genre that doesn't involve repetative actions.
Repetitive action is a grind by definition. Some people would define it using 'boring repetitive' and that is where the room for debate is, because that is a subjective term. Some people enjoy knitting, personally to me it's a grind.
I guess all games have grindy elements but all are not neccassarily 'a grind' (if you have other stuff to do). For example games that promote social play, exploring, crafting etc as well as combat will feel less 'grindy'.
Some people complain about 'quest grinds', they are the very people that don't bother trying to immerse themselves in the plot of the quest (I guess they are used to them being cack) . Of course putting red crosses on maps and glowing stars over npc's heads (mainly through player demand) makes games more grindy. I used to enjoy old school games where quests needed puzzling over and where you would follow directions to find your 10 rats location. Some companies don't bother writing quests like that any more....the players can follow the compass after all!
I blame the Jolly Green Ranger Brad McGrind for a lot too. He removed much of what was fun in MUDs with EQ1 in favour of promoting 'hardcore' (boring & unfun) mechanics like grinding and camping. Because EQ was a commercial success this was much emulated. EQ was a hugely dumbed down MUD with a radical (for the time) graphical view of a well realised world.
I am aware that some games attempt to hide their grind behind "kill 10 rat" quests, but I still believe a game like LotRO, WoW, or Warhammer do not have anything that could be considered a grind when compared to questless games like FF or L2.
Posters are certainly using different definitions of "grind".
You think WoW has no grind? Try leveling any of the crafting (production) professions other than alchemy. Making the same useless item dozens of times to skill up to the point of learning another useless recipe to grind.
Try skilling up your fishing. No grind? Get serious.
Running the same dungeon dozens of times to get a few pieces of gear. No grind?
AS for Warhammer Online - renown grind and Ward grind.
No grind - my Royal Canadian Behind.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
The people saying WoW and LotRo don't have grinds are completely wrong, they very well do have grinds, just not grind in the sense of korean mmo's. While filling up quest logs may not be a grind, consistantly killing mobs to collect "A" item to return to "B" quest giver. Over and over and over, equals out to be a pretty hefty mob grind. I remember a quest in wow that the items just would not drop, I spent over 2 hours killing the same monsters to get the item.
Getting that one piece of Perfect Gorilla Sinew in STV?
Getting the rod from the Yeti cave in Hillsbrad?
Those were two of the worst I ever ground through.
WH Online was way better in that respect. 100% rate on dropped quest items.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
The grind to get into nax in wow. I believe the fraction was Argent Dawn. It was my first grind and I remember how fun it was to do it with my former guildies.
Only 2 games i did not have problems with grind Asherons Call 2 and Darkfall.
AC2 had great grind groups and it was fun with Lugian tacts to camp some spot and grind for hours.
Darkfall i just like game and even tho some say it have a terible grind to rais skills they just play with wrong attitude becouse Darkfall have no grind if you play right way i do.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
No. That is a logical fallacy. An equally valid conclusion would be that he enjoys 'grinding'.
Wrong again,by that definition,would mean you have a distinct definition of grind that you could use to measure in ANY game.There is no set standard that you can call a grind.The ONLY people who ever use the word "improperly"are the ones that equate leveling with playing a game.
Do you decide that 15 minutes to level is a grind?25 minutes?who decides what is a grind and what is not?No sir there is NO definition,you are either having FUN or you are not.
If killing t olevel is part of the design,then tha tis what you will have fun doing,IF that is your desire for fun,if it involves questing and yo ulike that,then it is your fun,if it involves skills/stats it is the same again,it all depends on what you consider fun.
The worst part of it all,is it really seems by reading thousands of threads,that the MAJORITY who use the word grind,think the idea of FUN iswatcing a level number rise as fast as it can.So by that definition of FUn,they should be satisfied if a developer just emails themn a code to attain game over/end level,immediately after logging in 5 minutes.
You can argue that a game needs MORE to do ,other than just leveling up a numerical digit,hey i have no problem wit hthat.That just means yo uwant soem variety in your game,it stil ldoes not mean what you may get bored of after awhile cannot be fun.You only have to look at it realsitically,i love playing hockey,but could i play it 24/7? of course not,even the most fun ideas in life will get boring after a while.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Wizardy I agree with nearly all you have said. The judgement call pretty much comes down to what people consider boring and what they consider repetitive.
Regardless of that you can simply can not conclude that just because someone enjoys something that it is not a grind. Some people enjoy repetitive tasks and find them relaxing. It is a fine line between relaxation -> boredom and then finally -> apathy. The latter results in the /quit /uninstall. This is where different opinions of what people consider a grind come into play. Nowadays personally I reach apathy pretty quickly.
For me, it was City of Heroes. The combat is just so animated, with tons of colorful powers and bodies flying everywhere. Not overcomplicated, but fun, seat-of-your-pants battles.
DDO for me, but once you got capped there wasn't much there at the end (and there was no world to explore). WoW was quest-driven, so not bad, just long, SWG was a true grind, most others I've played I never made it to level-cap, I usually lost interest first.
Leveling my Ranger in SWG was my favorite "grind" Especially when you actually had to sit in a camp to get XP rather than just make kits. I remember sitting on whatever planet and having someone just pop into my camp as they were going by and we'd just strike up a conversation. Also when avian meat was important for doc buffs and I'd be grinding the birds on Lok. Made a pretty penny back then.
Honestly I could not pick just one as my all time favorite 3 are very close as far as how fun the grind was. The three I would pick are no question: FFXI, EQ2, and WOW in no piticular order.
I knew, to get my Winterspring Frostsaber, it was going to be a bear..but with all the rugged leather/thorium that was presented to me during my many laps around the area...it was very lucrative....I just didn't see that during the 2+ MONTH GRIND it took...enjoy???...only at the end
I did enjoy the grind in Aserons Call couse vile grinding you had the chance to find uber loot wich has not been possible in any other game I have played ever.
I agree with vidir above. Asherons call level grind was fun. I never looked at it as a grind though i looked at it as christmas a few times a week with the chance of god loot dropping. I wish other games had the loot system of asherons because it was an enjoyable experience.
UO and Vanguard. Both games have random drop that always can surprise you, give you something to expect and make the grind really fun.
In oposite most booring grind is the one in WoW where everything is so predefined that become booring after first or second run.
Where themepark games try to hide that they are copying WOW, games like Mortal Online and Darkfall make no attempt to hide their inspiration ______\m/_____ LordOfDarkDesire
For Skyguard rep. Oh man I wanted that flying vagina monster so bad. Only time I ever ground in 2700+ hours of WoW, although Alterac Valley did start to grate on me a few times.
I always loved Terokkar, and I love those bird-men, probably because I grew up with The Dark Crystal. I used to hunt them for the hell of it. Just to make them mad. The Skettis plateau's layout is awesome, and with the grinding and dailies going on you always had a lot of random PvP incidents.
Most of the endgame crowd were farming for Black Temple in those days (or something) so they'd be nearby in Nagrand or Shadowmoon Valley. Having your dailies disrupted always pissed people off, but it was so satisfying to do to someone else we all started shit at every opportunity, and everyone's guildmates would fly in and you'd have big nasty fights almost every day. This was also the only time the Bone Wastes contest around the Spirit Towers to the southwest ever saw the action it deserved.
A lot of games, and even big chunks of WoW, it's easy to look back and think "man I wasted a lot of time on that foolishness," but I wouldn't give back the time I spent on Burning Crusade for anything.
einexile the meek Vacuos, Winterlong, Vaciante, Eicosapenta Atlantean, Tyranny, Malton
Grinding Shards, Grinding Ssra Floor Keys, Grinding Weapons to kill the Emperor
Sound like a lot of grinding? You did it with guildies so it brought people together to work towards a common goal, best feeling ever. There was no set "date" that you had to have your key done by, everyone in the guild stopped what they were doing for a month essentially and helped everyone else. That is what MMOs are all about, and that is what is missing from MMOs today.
Now no one needs help because they can solo everything, and so they do and those friendships and tight knit guild communities are not formed.
The oriignal Jedi grind from weaking Padewam to Knight-trial ready Jedi. IT took me eight months of daily grinding.
I worked it out - it came down to 96,000 Bols on the hills to the north of Dantooine.
You had to group because you got an xp boost if you did so. You would meet with an afk entertainer in a player town, Sidious, an Imperial city.
Then you would zoom off on your bike into thje wilds and kill and kill again.
Sometimes you would see another lone figure, another jedi also grinding. Sometimes you would see another dot approaching, a bounty hunter and their friends. You would have to jumpmon your speeder and hightail it to the little cottage you had yourself set up in the hills, your hideaway hunting lodge. The BHs would trail you but once you were inside your secure lodge, they couldn't enter - though they could send in remote bombs. That's why you positioned a backpack renamed to your name just beside the front door because that would divert the bombs.
And all the time, you would be talking to your friends, other jedis on thje grind, getting advice on crystals, pearls, clothing, tapes, food, escape routes, combat macros...
And then Smedley, Torres, Dickinson, Neri, Rubenfeld, Macintyre and rest of that crew of clowns went and destroyed it all.
I enjoyed the SWG precu grind. My guildmates and/or friends would get together and kill beasts to level up, then sell the hides, meat, etc and split the profits. These grinding parties sometimes led to the beginnings of some great adventures.
Yes, pre-CU SWG got that right. Any noob could join a party and get some xp blazing away with their CDEF rifles along side Master Riflemen with their T21s. You met so many good people that way.
EQ would be my favorite. I loved it back in the day when youd get a group together and find a spot to camp and someone would pull. We would sit there for hours pull, kill, talk ...
My vote would be EQ a million times over.. I enjoyed nothing more than to start a group and set up camp at places like Velks Lab at either the FF, Eyes, or pits,, which ever was open.. Then camp for the named mobs for hours while socializing and cracking jokes on one another in good fun.. I've made alot of friends during those long grinds..
See, people who played EQ understood that reaching the top the quickest isn't the most important aspect of the game,,, For most of us, enjoying the ride to the top was the most fun...
Rallithon Oakthornn (Retired Heirophant of the 60th season)
Comments
Repetitive action is a grind by definition. Some people would define it using 'boring repetitive' and that is where the room for debate is, because that is a subjective term. Some people enjoy knitting, personally to me it's a grind.
I guess all games have grindy elements but all are not neccassarily 'a grind' (if you have other stuff to do). For example games that promote social play, exploring, crafting etc as well as combat will feel less 'grindy'.
Some people complain about 'quest grinds', they are the very people that don't bother trying to immerse themselves in the plot of the quest (I guess they are used to them being cack) . Of course putting red crosses on maps and glowing stars over npc's heads (mainly through player demand) makes games more grindy. I used to enjoy old school games where quests needed puzzling over and where you would follow directions to find your 10 rats location. Some companies don't bother writing quests like that any more....the players can follow the compass after all!
I blame the Jolly Green Ranger Brad McGrind for a lot too. He removed much of what was fun in MUDs with EQ1 in favour of promoting 'hardcore' (boring & unfun) mechanics like grinding and camping. Because EQ was a commercial success this was much emulated. EQ was a hugely dumbed down MUD with a radical (for the time) graphical view of a well realised world.
Posters are certainly using different definitions of "grind".
You think WoW has no grind? Try leveling any of the crafting (production) professions other than alchemy. Making the same useless item dozens of times to skill up to the point of learning another useless recipe to grind.
Try skilling up your fishing. No grind? Get serious.
Running the same dungeon dozens of times to get a few pieces of gear. No grind?
AS for Warhammer Online - renown grind and Ward grind.
No grind - my Royal Canadian Behind.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Getting that one piece of Perfect Gorilla Sinew in STV?
Getting the rod from the Yeti cave in Hillsbrad?
Those were two of the worst I ever ground through.
WH Online was way better in that respect. 100% rate on dropped quest items.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
This
The grind to get into nax in wow. I believe the fraction was Argent Dawn. It was my first grind and I remember how fun it was to do it with my former guildies.
I7@4ghz, 5970@ 1 ghz/5ghz, water cooled||Former setups Byggblogg||Byggblogg 2|| Msi Wind u100
Only 2 games i did not have problems with grind Asherons Call 2 and Darkfall.
AC2 had great grind groups and it was fun with Lugian tacts to camp some spot and grind for hours.
Darkfall i just like game and even tho some say it have a terible grind to rais skills they just play with wrong attitude becouse Darkfall have no grind if you play right way i do.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
No. That is a logical fallacy. An equally valid conclusion would be that he enjoys 'grinding'.
Wrong again,by that definition,would mean you have a distinct definition of grind that you could use to measure in ANY game.There is no set standard that you can call a grind.The ONLY people who ever use the word "improperly"are the ones that equate leveling with playing a game.
Do you decide that 15 minutes to level is a grind?25 minutes?who decides what is a grind and what is not?No sir there is NO definition,you are either having FUN or you are not.
If killing t olevel is part of the design,then tha tis what you will have fun doing,IF that is your desire for fun,if it involves questing and yo ulike that,then it is your fun,if it involves skills/stats it is the same again,it all depends on what you consider fun.
The worst part of it all,is it really seems by reading thousands of threads,that the MAJORITY who use the word grind,think the idea of FUN iswatcing a level number rise as fast as it can.So by that definition of FUn,they should be satisfied if a developer just emails themn a code to attain game over/end level,immediately after logging in 5 minutes.
You can argue that a game needs MORE to do ,other than just leveling up a numerical digit,hey i have no problem wit hthat.That just means yo uwant soem variety in your game,it stil ldoes not mean what you may get bored of after awhile cannot be fun.You only have to look at it realsitically,i love playing hockey,but could i play it 24/7? of course not,even the most fun ideas in life will get boring after a while.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Wizardy I agree with nearly all you have said. The judgement call pretty much comes down to what people consider boring and what they consider repetitive.
Regardless of that you can simply can not conclude that just because someone enjoys something that it is not a grind. Some people enjoy repetitive tasks and find them relaxing. It is a fine line between relaxation -> boredom and then finally -> apathy. The latter results in the /quit /uninstall. This is where different opinions of what people consider a grind come into play. Nowadays personally I reach apathy pretty quickly.
This is irrespective of how one describes 'grind' it is the logic that is flawed. http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-consequences.html
For me, it was City of Heroes. The combat is just so animated, with tons of colorful powers and bodies flying everywhere. Not overcomplicated, but fun, seat-of-your-pants battles.
DDO for me, but once you got capped there wasn't much there at the end (and there was no world to explore). WoW was quest-driven, so not bad, just long, SWG was a true grind, most others I've played I never made it to level-cap, I usually lost interest first.
Leveling my Ranger in SWG was my favorite "grind" Especially when you actually had to sit in a camp to get XP rather than just make kits. I remember sitting on whatever planet and having someone just pop into my camp as they were going by and we'd just strike up a conversation. Also when avian meat was important for doc buffs and I'd be grinding the birds on Lok. Made a pretty penny back then.
Honestly I could not pick just one as my all time favorite 3 are very close as far as how fun the grind was. The three I would pick are no question: FFXI, EQ2, and WOW in no piticular order.
I knew, to get my Winterspring Frostsaber, it was going to be a bear..but with all the rugged leather/thorium that was presented to me during my many laps around the area...it was very lucrative....I just didn't see that during the 2+ MONTH GRIND it took...enjoy???...only at the end
I did enjoy the grind in Aserons Call couse vile grinding you had the chance to find uber loot wich has not been possible in any other game I have played ever.
I agree with vidir above. Asherons call level grind was fun. I never looked at it as a grind though i looked at it as christmas a few times a week with the chance of god loot dropping. I wish other games had the loot system of asherons because it was an enjoyable experience.
Oh this is easy!
For me it is easily Dark Age of Camelot!
The game dynamics, player classes and free roaming aggro mobs always made grouping a blast!!
You can't wake a person who is pretending to be asleep. ~Navajo Proverb
UO and Vanguard. Both games have random drop that always can surprise you, give you something to expect and make the grind really fun.
In oposite most booring grind is the one in WoW where everything is so predefined that become booring after first or second run.
Where themepark games try to hide that they are copying WOW, games like Mortal Online and Darkfall make no attempt to hide their inspiration
______\m/_____
LordOfDarkDesire
SKETTIS!
For Skyguard rep. Oh man I wanted that flying vagina monster so bad. Only time I ever ground in 2700+ hours of WoW, although Alterac Valley did start to grate on me a few times.
I always loved Terokkar, and I love those bird-men, probably because I grew up with The Dark Crystal. I used to hunt them for the hell of it. Just to make them mad. The Skettis plateau's layout is awesome, and with the grinding and dailies going on you always had a lot of random PvP incidents.
Most of the endgame crowd were farming for Black Temple in those days (or something) so they'd be nearby in Nagrand or Shadowmoon Valley. Having your dailies disrupted always pissed people off, but it was so satisfying to do to someone else we all started shit at every opportunity, and everyone's guildmates would fly in and you'd have big nasty fights almost every day. This was also the only time the Bone Wastes contest around the Spirit Towers to the southwest ever saw the action it deserved.
A lot of games, and even big chunks of WoW, it's easy to look back and think "man I wasted a lot of time on that foolishness," but I wouldn't give back the time I spent on Burning Crusade for anything.
einexile the meek
Vacuos, Winterlong, Vaciante, Eicosapenta
Atlantean, Tyranny, Malton
Logic has no place at mmorpg.com...
FFXI - no idea why I loved it so much but when I think back, I never really got annoyed or tired with the grind and it was enjoyable.
EQ1 - Vex Thal Key Farm
Grinding Shards, Grinding Ssra Floor Keys, Grinding Weapons to kill the Emperor
Sound like a lot of grinding? You did it with guildies so it brought people together to work towards a common goal, best feeling ever. There was no set "date" that you had to have your key done by, everyone in the guild stopped what they were doing for a month essentially and helped everyone else. That is what MMOs are all about, and that is what is missing from MMOs today.
Now no one needs help because they can solo everything, and so they do and those friendships and tight knit guild communities are not formed.
The oriignal Jedi grind from weaking Padewam to Knight-trial ready Jedi. IT took me eight months of daily grinding.
I worked it out - it came down to 96,000 Bols on the hills to the north of Dantooine.
You had to group because you got an xp boost if you did so. You would meet with an afk entertainer in a player town, Sidious, an Imperial city.
Then you would zoom off on your bike into thje wilds and kill and kill again.
Sometimes you would see another lone figure, another jedi also grinding. Sometimes you would see another dot approaching, a bounty hunter and their friends. You would have to jumpmon your speeder and hightail it to the little cottage you had yourself set up in the hills, your hideaway hunting lodge. The BHs would trail you but once you were inside your secure lodge, they couldn't enter - though they could send in remote bombs. That's why you positioned a backpack renamed to your name just beside the front door because that would divert the bombs.
And all the time, you would be talking to your friends, other jedis on thje grind, getting advice on crystals, pearls, clothing, tapes, food, escape routes, combat macros...
And then Smedley, Torres, Dickinson, Neri, Rubenfeld, Macintyre and rest of that crew of clowns went and destroyed it all.
Yes, pre-CU SWG got that right. Any noob could join a party and get some xp blazing away with their CDEF rifles along side Master Riflemen with their T21s. You met so many good people that way.
My vote would be EQ a million times over.. I enjoyed nothing more than to start a group and set up camp at places like Velks Lab at either the FF, Eyes, or pits,, which ever was open.. Then camp for the named mobs for hours while socializing and cracking jokes on one another in good fun.. I've made alot of friends during those long grinds..
See, people who played EQ understood that reaching the top the quickest isn't the most important aspect of the game,,, For most of us, enjoying the ride to the top was the most fun...
Rallithon Oakthornn
(Retired Heirophant of the 60th season)