How I Came To Hate The Grind
Also known as: why I’m not currently playing any MMOs.
I’ve tried, I really have, but having to run out and kill 20 of the same creature for some paltry reward and a further quest to kill 40, then 50 of some other creature reminds me far too much of work. Dull, monotonous, mind-numbing, and not what I want to spend my spare time doing. I liken it to peeling pounds upon pounds of pumpkin seeds, which yes, I actually did as prep work for my undergraduate thesis in biology. I then proceeded to grind them into little tiny indistinguishable pieces, which is what many MMO’s do to my remaining vestiges of sanity.
I’ve tried any major MMO that could possibly intrigue. World of Warcraft, Matrix Online, Dungeons & Dragons Online, Everquest, Everquest…II, EvE; all met with boredom and total abandonment within a two weeks of playing. The only pseudo-MMO to keep me entertained was one that purists hiss and spit at like it’s the coming of the anti-Christ: Guild Wars. Even that, now that I have top level players and no real goals considering that I don’t PvP regularly or belong, in a game totally geared to geeking it up in groups, to a guild.
I tried choosing new games to try in all manner of ways: cost, gameplay mechanics, subscriber base size, and lately, background story.
Which is the latest in a long line to fall by the wayside?
My latest frustration, and the source of the 20-40-50 kill example, was Silk Road Online, a promising mix of magic and history that takes places in the Asian continent during the golden days of consumerism’s youth. Gear yourself towards heroicism, mercantile magesty, or trickery and banditry while running amok on the Silk Road in search of fame, fortune, or some combination of the two. I love history. I love that I play on the ‘Tibet’ server, and that such a thing exists. I love that my little Mahat kicks royal patootie with a spear.
I am not glad, however; to have to run around killing 50 things that looks like cracked-out turtles, or that I have to wait every now and again for the bloody monsters to re-spawn, which they do, albeit generally right on top of where you’re standing. I don’t like the fact that all the quests are the same, just gotten from a different NPC with a different species requirement for the killage. This too, was why WoW had me sighing only a couple of hours in.
I think that I would become a stark raving addict to any one of the aforementioned games, if they managed to appeal to me from the get-go. If I got up to level 30 in WoW, of course I’d work my butt off to hit 40 plus, it’s a challenge at that point, a status thing, a mark of pride. And if you spend that much time on something, you’re bound to want to get more involved with the community and develop your own set of tricks and skills. This is understandable. I understand the addiction, and in fact I think I somewhat crave it. The sad fact is that no game that I’ve played in the last 5 years has been able to hook me. I need something that will grab my lustfully, drag me in behind the bowling alley, and leave me whimpering for more. The best I’ve been able to attain thus far is a virtual kiss on the cheek in Second Life.
Who knows, maybe ex-Sony guru Raph Koster, who has just announced the formation of his own studio called Areae Inc., will be able to lure me back into the persistent virtual realm. Already influential for his hand in Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies, he ditched Sony Online Entertainment to pursue his own vision of “taking the tired old virtual world and making it into something fresh and new.” He and partner John Donham have apparently got some nifty ideas up their sleeves not only for playable products, but for the architecture that creates them. Until then, I’ll stick to the real world.
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POSTED IN: MMORPG, Musings, Online Gaming, Things That Suck, World of Warcraft
7 opinions for How I Came To Hate The Grind
angelo
Dec 19, 2006 at 1:21 am
Part of the fun in WoW is the leveling grind. I’m now leveling an undead warlock I created a long time ago which i shelved (now level 35) and I’m having fun. I’ve played a 60 mage for a long time and after doing just raids and pvp at 60, the thrill of levelling and grinding once again is a nice change of pace.
If the grind to 30 is something you can’t stand then WoW is not for you. The grind gets even longer and more “boring” at higher levels as the amount of time between “dings” get bigger and bigger.
Ingrid
Dec 19, 2006 at 2:41 am
I’m not a big fan of the grind, which is actually a lot of the reason I got bored of City of Heroes (and City of Villains) and even WoW for a long time.
I tried EverQuest and EQII and EVE and Guild Wars and got very bored very fast. Which is odd, considering I actually really like MMOs.
WoW, however, I feel is different. Sometimes I log into WoW, spend 4 hours there, and kill absolutely nothing and still have a blast. I run around the world looking for hidden vendors that have recipes, I work on getting my crafting skills up, I shop at the Auction House, I sell things, I run around looking for plants.
I find it interesting because a lot of people don’t bother to level up their professions, but I find that to be one of the more entertaining parts of the game. I get really bored killing things over and over and doing quests. But after a couple of days of not killing anything, I start to feel like wanting to kill things again. Sometimes I stop playing for a week, and then I start thinking of all the things I want to do, and get excited again.
Sometimes I fight against the World sometimes I fight against other players (the new PvP system is fun!) I also have fun doing things like taking my lowbie friends through instances and killing things just by looking at them, and letting my friends loot everything. It’s too bad you didn’t tell me you were in WoW! I would’ve played with you :p
I think any game, where all you do is grind, is boring.
Okay this is long enough to be a post all by itself … I will shut up now.
Areae, Inc. » Blog Archive » Areae in the blogosphere
Dec 19, 2006 at 7:14 am
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Stuart
Dec 19, 2006 at 9:51 am
I found WOW to be just a repeat of the same thing over and over and you HAVE to fight things to even enjoy it. SWG & UO are both fun to play as you could do something other than killing.
They both required players to craft or gather things for other players. Be it armor, weapons, potions, even things for your virtual house.
The most fun I have ever had was playing UO as a miner. I would travel all over Britannia seeking new places to mine ore to sell to blacksmiths so they can make armor and weapons for the warriors. I didn’t have to grind fighting skills to enjoy the game or wait until I got to a high level to get a horse.
I’ve returned to UO thanks to the free servers and am now thinking of returning completely when the new expansion comes out.
Karine
Dec 19, 2006 at 11:00 pm
You know me, I’m not a gamer. So the grind is not for me either. I can have fun killing stuff for a while - a little while, but then I’m bound to get bored.
As Ingrid said, the professions make a difference. Levelling your craft is fun. And yes I can be bothered to kill the same elementals over and over because I want to craft myself that nifty new pair of pants that will further my killing machine status, and look hawt. However, I will never kill the same kind of stuff over and over just to level.
Then the AH. One could never level beyond 1 and just sit there and play the market. well it might be a little hard at first, I guess you’d have to go out a kill a few somethings to make a few silvers to invest.
Then, there’s the secondary professions. I love to simply fish for a while at the end of a work day. It relaxes me immensely.
Now about the grind in Wow… and it getting longer and more boring at the higher levels. I think the key to having fun is not being focused on leveling. It might sound stupid. But I’ve found that some of my characters were leveling with no effort as I was concentrating on other things. And I was actually trying to slow my priest’s road to 60 as she was leveling insanely fast. Every time I’ve focused on leveling (because I just couldn’t wait to get that horse) it has seemed really long and boring.
Last but not least… one of the big advantages in WoW is you can have up to 10 characters on each server. and I just love to be able to switch between characters. It’s fun for me to go farm or do instances with my 60 priest, and then log on to my lowbie hunter and go explore the world anew. And then when I get tired of quests and stuff with her, I switch to my rogue, and change professions - and then leveling that seems to level her painlessly.
Anyway. I’ll shut up now. But if you ever want to try WoW again, let me know. Most of the fun is doing quests and instances etc with other people and goofing around. Especially during the christmas season : snowballs! presents!
The Grind - Top Mud Sites Forum
Jul 29, 2007 at 11:58 am
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Smoogles
Aug 26, 2007 at 10:50 am
The dreaded grind.. ugh. It seems to be the same in all of these ‘Role playing’ games, free or otherwise.
In traditional (pen and paper) roleplaying, at least there was a whole storyline, and things like suspense, atmosphere, a sense of actually being there, and many other positive aspects. All of which seem to be missing from their electronic counterparts, which is why I am even hesitant to call then ‘Role playing’ games. Even football games have you playing roles, but they aren’t considered roleplaying. So I really don’t like to consider something which is basically a statistical framework, with stats, and +x to damage, with a % for this or that to happen.. then you raise your strength or whatever, to allow you a +1 to whatever.. ugh. It really is missing the whole point of Roleplaying I feel.
One day, via electronic means, I hope to play on an actual roleplaying game, rather than a collect ‘em up, or a hack ‘em up, which passes the time for some.
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