After 12 years, why do people still refer to grind as "content"?

[Ryzael]

Thats not a game...... Its a social network site. I dont care what YOU call it, the site itself does consider it to be a game.

SO, nope MMOs are a grind by nature.

If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, we call it a dog so it's a dog.
MMOs are social networks too, wow.

Habbo is also a game, you play it with other people, you make a character, build rooms, interact with people. Playing with 25-50 people in a room in Habbo was often playing with a lot more people than in many "real" MMOs, you usually play as a group of only 5 in WoW separated off in your own little instance.

[IIamaKing]

If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, we call it a dog so it's a dog.
MMOs are social networks too, wow.

Habbo is also a game, you play it with other people, you make a character, build rooms, interact with people. Playing with 25-50 people in a room in Habbo was often playing with a lot more people than in many "real" MMOs, you usually play as a group of only 5 in WoW separated off in your own little instance.

GO chat with people in Habbo then.

[Shakari]

I also think this way.
Time gated grinds are the cheap way to deliver "content" to do for months.
True content is Mythic+ dungeons and raids.

The rest is a well disguised and polished version of time gated content wannabe grind.
Blizzard is a master at polishing things and showcasing them as pretty as possible.
-Class Halls
-Artifacts
-World Quests
-Reputations

Everything is polished and with extremely good presentation. Blizzard is a pro.
But the only true content where you actually have to play the game is Mythic+ and raids.

Its all "content" there is no getting away from that, just a lot of it is repeatable.

Infact even raiding and mythic+ is grinding content, as you do the same raid and mythic content again and again just gets "harder" with each difficulty but the content itself does not change.

The fact the even you don't see that and the fact that the whole game can be considered "grinding" and a time sink,, proves how well Blizz presents it.

This does not detract from WoW as a game at all, as all MMO's have this in one way or another.

Just Blizzards seems to be able to do it present it and carry it out better than any other current MMO

[Ryzael]

GO chat with people in Habbo then.

I never said I wanted to play Habbo or that I didn't want to play WoW, I'm merely trying to correct the misinformation that MMO = GRIND, it's simply untrue and not healthy for our genre no matter how many people believe the opposite. World isn't flat.

[IIamaKing]

I never said I wanted to play Habbo or that I didn't want to play WoW, I'm merely trying to correct the misinformation that MMO = GRIND, it's simply untrue and not healthy for our genre no matter how many people believe the opposite. World isn't flat.

Ok, Lets pretend for a moment you are right ( you are not but we can pretend) Offer an alternative. What kind of content can they hope to produce at a speed that keeps up with player consumption?

Grinds are used because they extend the life of content, they offer something for players to work for. Its why EVERY mmo (not social media games) has them.

[epLe]

Grinds are the cornerstones all MMOs are buildt upon, without them there is no investment into your toon and nothing that keep people playing.

Grinding raidbosses for gear or a mount is just the same.

[Mendzia]

Mats farming
Rep farming
Artifact farming
Level farming
Gold farming
Gear grinding
Achievement farming (the pointless shit, i.e. anything almost everything not PVP)
Daily farming
etc

For me it is:
Having fun
Talking with friends on TS3
Meeting new cool people
Spending free time in cool way
etc

[Ryzael]

Ok, Lets pretend for a moment you are right ( you are not but we can pretend) Offer an alternative. What kind of content can they hope to produce at a speed that keeps up with player consumption?

Grinds are used because they extend the life of content, they offer something for players to work for. Its why EVERY mmo (not social media games) has them.

Instead of only easy content meant to be replayed a million times, Hard content meant to be a challenge to overcome.
In my opinion it would be better to have 1% of players that are good enough to rush through all the content in a day than have 99% of players that can beat the content in a month.

By making content difficult they can actually make less content overall, while still keeping it alive for longer periods of time. Downing a boss becomes a big achievement that you improved as a player to beat, not just ticking off boss #4912 dead despite no personal growth you just played a lot.

[IIamaKing]

Instead of only easy content meant to be replayed a million times, Hard content meant to be a challenge to overcome.
In my opinion it would be better to have 1% of players that are good enough to rush through all the content in a day than have 99% of players that can beat the content in a month.

By making content difficult they can actually make less content overall, while still keeping it alive for longer periods of time. Downing a boss becomes a big achievement that you improved as a player to beat, not just ticking off boss #4912 dead despite no personal growth you just played a lot.

SO make it so hard that most people cant do it......SO most people move on to a game with more achievable goals.

I think I would like them to keep making xpac like Legion, accessible but with challenge if you want to go after it. We had a game that catered to that 1% hardcore crowd, Wildstar was its name, Its now nerfed to accessibility and circling the drain.

[Ryzael]

SO make it so hard that most people cant do it......SO most people move on to a game with more achievable goals.

I think I would like them to keep making xpac like Legion, accessible but with challenge if you want to go after it. We had a game that catered to that 1% hardcore crowd, Wildstar was its name, Its now nerfed to accessibility and circling the drain.

There would still be plenty of content that everybody can do.
I'm not saying to make 100% of the content require 100% skill, even if 50% of the content was only as hard as it is now that would be perfect. The problem is right now there's NOTHING above easy difficulty setting, everything is scaled based on the time you spent grinding gear.

Wildstar died for a lot of reasons, and difficulty was a low reason if even one of them.

[Pony Soldier]

The thing is, in ANY MMO and especially the RPG ones you're always going to be grinding, that's just how MMOs are. They don't end they keep going and the only way to do that is to have some sort of grind content in it like dailies and world quests in WoW. Without that then you will truly have no content and people will have nothing to do but to start another character and do the same thing you just did all over again. It's just how MMOs work and that's how they've been for years as far as I know.

After 12 years why do people still refer to grinding as content? Well if they've been playing the game for 10-12 years then it's obviously fun for them. Just because you don't like it and you don't consider it content doesn't mean it's not considered content for other people. I think the real question here is after 12 years why are people still asking why people like something? Why are people having fun with this game? Why why why? Asking why is pointless as it's going to usually end up to somebody giving you their opinion which you may or may not like and it'll either end up turning into this conversation of shared opinions or a childish argument over why I like something and why you hate what I like.

The answer is simple, people still refer to it as content because those people are having fun with it so naturally it is considered content to them. People like you who don't enjoy the grinding don't refer to it as content because you don't like it. It's as simple as that. There is no right or wrong answer here because it's all opinionated. Asking a question like that is like saying "why do you like this? You shouldn't like this because it's not fun. I hate it so therefore you should hate it too". After 12 years I still don't get why people can't understand that other people have different opinions on things and why they can't just accept that.

[Dracullus]

One thing is good, after Warlords of Draenor fiasco Blizzard will never take seriously whines about "too much grind" anymore. You don't have to got everything on first day.

[Biged781]

After 12 years, why do people still refer to grind as "content"?

After 12 years, why do people still expect a completely different game? Seriously, go play something else. You'd have to be an idiot to expect a massive shift in the core gameplay at this point.

[IIamaKing]

There would still be plenty of content that everybody can do.
I'm not saying to make 100% of the content require 100% skill, even if 50% of the content was only as hard as it is now that would be perfect. The problem is right now there's NOTHING above easy difficulty setting, everything is scaled based on the time you spent grinding gear.

Wildstar died for a lot of reasons, and difficulty was a low reason if even one of them.

Ok, so you are just going to lie now? Mythic+ and Mythic raiding are easy now? I assume you got Realm First mythic +15 then. Done here, I was pretty sure you were trolling prior to this, now I am sure you are.

[jeanericuser001]

Ok, Lets pretend for a moment you are right ( you are not but we can pretend) Offer an alternative. What kind of content can they hope to produce at a speed that keeps up with player consumption?

Grinds are used because they extend the life of content, they offer something for players to work for. Its why EVERY mmo (not social media games) has them.

3 words:unlockable progression content. Currently grinding is based on the idea that if you work long enough and hard enough things get easier and more entertaining. The problem is constant repetition of the same thing without change gets tedious instead. There will always be desire for new content. That is why unlockable progression in content is important as it gives players a sense of progress as they "progress" from one thing to the next. This makes grinds seem less tedious as there is a very measurable difference from where they were to where they are now. This kind of progress was more common in times past but now its rarely as noteworthy as it use to be. We need more noticeable progression in content as opposed to content which only gets easier as time goes by. This is done thru unlocking content through varied quests as well as content which unlocks automatically over time.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Habbo Hotel was grindless
fact disproved

Grinding is in MOST mmos, because it's super easy to dish out countless hours of grind and trick simple players like you into thinking the game's got depth.

Do tell us, in all your wisdom, what is "depth" in YOUR mind...? Can't wait to know.

[Ryzael]

Ok, so you are just going to lie now? Mythic+ and Mythic raiding are easy now? I assume you got Realm First mythic +15 then. Done here, I was pretty sure you were trolling prior to this, now I am sure you are.

Once you spend the time grinding BIS gear, yes they are. Hardest part about raiding has always been organizing a large amount of people that are geared to raid, never raid difficulty.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Once you spend the time grinding BIS gear, yes they are. Hardest part about raiding has always been organizing a large amount of people that are geared to raid, never raid difficulty.

The best players in the world wiped 900 times in a single raid. I'm sure they would like to have you, seeing as how you seem to be some form of super player.

[Polarthief]

That's what most single player RPG's offer, no grinds but played once and done.

Leveling in a single player RPG is totally not grinding to pad the game time, amirite?

[EternalBany]

MMOS ARE GRIND
jesus...if you dont like grind dont play mmos, maybe you no longer like that genre.
I no longer like FPS like i did years ago so i never touch them anymore, its not uncommon times change tastes change