General Discussion

 After I got into discussion with a friend of mine on lotro, I came to the conclusion a lot of people have different views of grinding. To him, it was killing the same creatures over and over, without quests. For me, it were Lotro's quest, which exist out of the exact same imo (but that isn't the point atm). I find games like WoW, Lotro etc. grindfests, while he only started about grinding when no quests at all when involved.

After that, we moved from grinding experience for levels, we went over to crafting. Where we seemed to have other opinions again. I don't really mind grinding for crafting items, I'm pretty sure that when you craft things in real-life, you need the materials too. But he did seem to hate the grind (mostly the search) for materials.

We went on like that for quite a while, it was the usual grindfest talk, with brains. Anyway, I was wondering what your opinions are. Just don't start flaming games for having too much grind etc. As that is exactly my point, a lot of people seem to like grind, as they have another understanding of the word 'grind'. 

Grinding is any task that is repetitive and boring/drudgery/non-fun task.  The first part can be factual and objective.  The second part is completely subjective.  Therefore grinding is in your head and cannot really be completely eliminated from the game, conversely the game may not have it at all.  Funny how subjective things work.

Venge Sunsoar

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

Grinding is any task that is repetitive and boring/drudgery/non-fun task.  The first part can be factual and objective.  The second part is completely subjective.  Therefore grinding is in your head and cannot really be completely eliminated from the game, conversely the game may not have it at all.  Funny how subjective things work.

Venge Sunsoar

You even have a matching quote, heh. But you didn't really answer the question, when do you start to see things as grind?

I pretty much agree with you. I find quests a grind, because all they really do is direct your hack and slash to a specific point. The story behind the quests usually means absolutely nothing, except as backdrop, much like the game world itself.

But when it comes to trade skills, grinding piece by piece is boring, and I liek the systems that you simply start, and run through untill the end that you set. I'd like to see that expanded, to have some changes depending on the circumstances, sort of like Vanguard did. Maybe you need to add more fuel to the fire, stoke the fire, add more copper to that bronze item, cool it down a bit, etc. The quality of items could be dictated by how you adjust things to be just right.

Gathering materials is a good thing. But I wish this too would be expanded, so that it's a trade skill in itself, and sell the materials on the market.

Overall, expanding the trade skill systems would create more specific jobs, and that would create more social game play through trade.

One thing I hate about current "grind" games, the levels separate players, and cause levels of materials. I wish that would go away, so that players can always sell what they get for value, and not end up tossing things because what had value last week suddenly is a waste of time.

I find things a grind when I'm bored of doing that task.  Whether it be crafting or fighting or questing.  I find it boring when doing that activity to get to the next level becomes my only reason for doing that activity.  For example in Istaria (HZ) I'll be crafting, gathering resources, dragging to a station, processing them, dragging them to another station and making the item, however there are not enough people to sell the item too, and typically the item I have is allready better, and I need to do this same task for anotehr 1-5 hours to gain a level.  BORING.

If I could sell it, or use it, or make some impact on the world it would be less boring.

Venge Sunsoar

The first time I played UO, I had no problem of running around W. Britain woods killing bears and hinds to take their leather for my crafter character. In the meantime, I was developing my healing/swords skills so I actually had a feeling of accomplishment. Along the way I'd be collecting gold from trolls/ettinses to help pay for a house or reagents to train magery with. After that character though, most of my new ones would be developed via macros/sparring but I guess a lot of games nowadays lack that option.

Playing WAR, I feel like it's a big grind. Sure you have different choices (scenarios, quests, PQ's) but in the end, each of the three feel repetitive and not much different. Even the rewards I get along the way (influence/reknown items) don't make it any more satisfying. Hopefully I can last another 15+ levels to see what the end game RvR is like.

But yeah, like Venge said, leveling for the sake of leveling will make it feel like a grind.

Hmm... Answers are all the same in these forums, just to make it interesting, I'm going to ask in other forums (especialy interested in RS/L2 forums). And to make it more extreme, I'll pay a visit to forumfall.