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

[lightofdawn]

Actually, I'm pretty sure I never said it wasn't content at all. I said it was BAD content. And it sounds like you agree with me. Don't confuse me with the OP.

everyone blends together on this forum for me... i think it's because of the layout, idk.

[Madcuzbad]

Cmon now don't bash Legion!

[Klingers]

• Stockholm Syndrome;
• Flimsy rationalization;
• Sunk Cost Fallacy.

I think that about covers it.

[Svisalith]

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

If an MMO has no mats(professions), no rep, no artifacts, no levels, no gold, no gear, no achievements, no dailies.. what the hell do you want to spend all of your time doing?

[Deleted]

If an MMO has no mats(professions), no rep, no artifacts, no levels, no gold, no gear, no achievements, no dailies.. what the hell do you want to spend all of your time doing?

i have a feeling he is a pvp player like me. thinking that because im thinking similary sooo yeah PvP is actualy allways different. also some games can hide all these grind behind realy enjoyable content like GW2 for example. blizz just pushes it in your face in the most boring and outdated way possible.

[Deleted]

All those listed by the OP are repetitive CONTENT. Which is a normal thing in a MMORPG.

/thread

A normal thing in bad MMORPG. WoW became popular by introducing a MMORPG without all the usual grinds (meant to keep people subscribed) of older MMO.

[SirCowdog]

All those listed by the OP are repetitive CONTENT. Which is a normal thing in a MMORPG.

/thread

Translation: How things are now, and how things have been in the past, is how things should always be. Change is bad.

Here's a little bit of thought experiment for you, if you can muster the imagination: Try assuming for a moment that the current setup for the content is NOT the best it could be.

That's it. If there is any scenario you can come up with where ANY improvement can be made to the grind, then you are also forced to admit that what is "normal" for an MMORPG is not necessarily what is BEST for an MMORPG.

[Zelorra]

There's no mandatory grind in WoW, everything is optional, so that makes it a good MMORPG. You can't even call them grinds, because the ways to advance in the game are so varied. And I don't know what you're talking about with "WoW became popular by introducing a MMORPG without all the usual grinds", because Timbermaw rep grind was one of the most retarded grinds in WoW, nothing today even comes close to that...

MMOs can't have new content at the rate some people consume it, that's just not possible. You don't like the repetitive content, you take a break until they produce more new content, OR slow the fuck down and stop playing 6-12 hours a day, just to yell after 2 weeks that you have nothing to do... Congratulations, you completed most of the things they've worked on for 2 years in 2 weeks...

[MrExcelion]

I don't personally. Which is why I already stopped playing Legion. Truth is, I love the expansion, I'm just at a point with my main where it's just more grinding. That's usually when I stop anyways.

I'm kind of in the same boat too, starting to remember that I'm playing a MMO. Blizzards doing the right thing here, but yeah, I'm getting tired of AP farming, not something I want to do for the next few months. Raiding is still cool though, though its bothersome to raid with inferior gear and AP level. I just know a lot of folks out there might have set aside a month to go ham on this game and the AP/WQ/M+ grind but inevitably it can't last forever with existing IRL obligations. Again though, I think this is what a MMO should be.

[Deleted]

OP doesn't make much sense. MMORPGs have always been about grinding. However I do think that grind in recent expansions has turned to new levels of stupid because of lack of actual content, bad pacing and modes galore.

In old WoW everything took way more time: leveling, professions, dungeons. It didn't feel like grind because players spent months doing content they haven't done before. Leveling took months. Dungeons took hours to complete. Professions required investing massive amount of time (or gold if you wanted shortcuts). Even in raiding bosses took time and there was something new to look forward to.

Today content lasts less than a week. 2 days to level up 100-110, 1-2 days to complete all dungeons, few hours to do profession quests. Then do same content over and over again, sometimes with different difficulty setting. Raids are cleared in simple mode in 1 day, then repeat it with extra gimmicks with nothing new to look forward to.

Today WoW is more grindy than ever before because of fast pacing and multiple difficulties of same content.

[Tyraena]

Achievement farming (the pointless shit, i.e. anything almost everything not PVP)

This invalidates any point you might have wanted to make. If the only thing you like is PVP, then yup, everything else will be a grind.

Guess what? Even your PVP is a grind. ANY action done repetitively is a grind.

Brush your teeth every day? Grind.
Eat lunch every day? Grind.
Shower before bed? Grind.
Go to work? GRIIIIIIND.

Get the picture yet? No matter how much you might want it otherwise, whether something is a grind or not is only defined by YOUR opinion of it. Personally, all the things you want I would consider a grind. Honor and prestige are a grind. Hunting iLvl for .1% increases in stats to be competitive is a grind. Why? Because i don;t enjoy PVP.

Stop trying to make the game into what you want? If that is your goal, try grinding out the education, skills, and experience needed to make a game that meets your standards.

- - - Updated - - -

Translation: How things are now, and how things have been in the past, is how things should always be. Change is bad.

Here's a little bit of thought experiment for you, if you can muster the imagination: Try assuming for a moment that the current setup for the content is NOT the best it could be.

That's it. If there is any scenario you can come up with where ANY improvement can be made to the grind, then you are also forced to admit that what is "normal" for an MMORPG is not necessarily what is BEST for an MMORPG.

You seem to be under the impression that Blizzard has endless time, money, and resources with which to deploy endless types and volumes of new, previously unexplored content. It has nothing to do with whether change is good or bad, they change the game significantly every expac.

It doesn't matter if we, or they, can imagine a better way, a cooler way, a more interesting way. What matters is whether it fits the game, or strays too far from the what the CREATORS of the game feel is the core game-play and style of content.

I can think of many ways MMORPG's could be better, but I don't worry about it. I play the games as the developers design them. If I don't like it, I move on to something else. I've played WoW since vanilla closed beta, because I like it. It keeps getting (mostly, other than WoD) better.

Here is a thought experiment for YOU. Imagine an world in which your not some entitled prat telling a game designer to make their piece of art in your image, and show some appreciation for what they have contributed to this community and the MMORPG experience.

[Snackwiches]

Because it's an MMO.

The game has a fuck ton of genuine content but in order to be sustainable, any game has to be grindy.

Grinding is fine as long as it's enjoyable, which in most cases it is in this game. If you dont think it is then quit and cry less about stupid shit

[Deleted]

There's no mandatory grind in WoW, everything is optional, so that makes it a good MMORPG. You can't even call them grinds, because the ways to advance in the game are so varied. And I don't know what you're talking about with "WoW became popular by introducing a MMORPG without all the usual grinds", because Timbermaw rep grind was one of the most retarded grinds in WoW, nothing today even comes close to that...

MMOs can't have new content at the rate some people consume it, that's just not possible. You don't like the repetitive content, you take a break until they produce more new content, OR slow the fuck down and stop playing 6-12 hours a day, just to yell after 2 weeks that you have nothing to do... Congratulations, you completed most of the things they've worked on for 2 years in 2 weeks...

Nothing is optional in WoW if you want to play any relevant content . I mean in a sense it is optional because its just a game but you can't justify every game with "its optional don't play" otherwise there is no room for improvement.

So regarding wow progression system,where is the option again? If you want the best gear you need to raid normal/heroic and then mythic. Mythic dungeons are a new feature after 12 years of waiting and the rewards are still weaker. You might say its normal because raids are "harder" but thats not an option then, its a mandatory path. PvP? PvP has been the same old battlegrounds and arenas since BC, nothing has evolved but the devs having no clue about how to balance their pvp game and even with Legion they still fail hard. PvP is just bad in this game...its a secondary form of content just like anything else in this game besides raiding.

Actually if we take out of account gear, what progression does the game offer? This game progression system is only about gear sadly. If you want to play another way, like being a diplomat, a merchant, a trader you can't you can just "pretend" by selling things to the AH but thats hardly content developed by Blizzard. The only relevant content that receives consistent development resources and focus is raiding and gearing. The game does not give you any freedom on how to customize your character personality or face consequences for you actions, there just isn't anything designed for this. You only progress with gear and killing dragons. People like to refer to D&D to justify RPGs being about gear but thats not true, D&D is clearly not about gearing up, its about impersonating and seeing the results of your choices. Choices which....well in all the recent MMOs...do not exist.

This game, as an MMO, does not live up to the whole "persistent, living,dynamic world" MMOs should offer. Which current MMOs actually offer that? Most of them are just on-rail theme parks identical to WoW with no freedom and no interaction with the world at all. They just follow the same linear progression system that revolves around a gear treadmill and instanced content.

- - - Updated - - -

Because it's an MMO.

The game has a fuck ton of genuine content but in order to be sustainable, any game has to be grindy.

Grinding is fine as long as it's enjoyable, which in most cases it is in this game. If you dont think it is then quit and cry less about stupid shit

People like you have no clue about what MMO means and what RPG means. MMO= massive multiplayer online game. Nothing said about "massive grind". RPG means role playing game. You think role playing is just gearing up and grinding?

You have been conditioned in this mindset by the Everquest/WoW and WoW clones style. But MMORPGS as a genre has never implied that it revolves around gear grinding, just because many choose the easy path does not mean its the only right path. It blows my mind how players enjoy mindless entertainment so much that they prefer to leave games rot in their decaying mediocrity rather than improving them just because they hate to leave their comfort zone of grinding the same mindless stuff just to "kill time"

- - - Updated - - -

[SirCowdog]

You seem to be under the impression that Blizzard has endless time, money, and resources with which to deploy endless types and volumes of new, previously unexplored content. It has nothing to do with whether change is good or bad, they change the game significantly every expac.

It doesn't matter if we, or they, can imagine a better way, a cooler way, a more interesting way. What matters is whether it fits the game, or strays too far from the what the CREATORS of the game feel is the core game-play and style of content.

I can think of many ways MMORPG's could be better, but I don't worry about it. I play the games as the developers design them. If I don't like it, I move on to something else. I've played WoW since vanilla closed beta, because I like it. It keeps getting (mostly, other than WoD) better.

Here is a thought experiment for YOU. Imagine an world in which your not some entitled prat telling a game designer to make their piece of art in your image, and show some appreciation for what they have contributed to this community and the MMORPG experience.

I was with you until you decided to turn it to name calling. And it's YOU'RE, not your.

As for appreciation? I already pay them a fee just to access the game every month, on top of another fee to gain access to the newest expansion. They get my appreciation on top of that when the game is worthy of it. Over-use of filler and hard time-locks is not worthy of anything other than ridicule, especially from a company as experienced and talented as Blizzard. This isn't some second-rate knock-off game we're talking about here. This is the leader in the genre. The largest, most well-funded MMORPG dev team in existence. And yet they resort to such tactics.

P.S.: I never said they had to make the game to suit me. And I am not telling a game designer to do anything. I simply pointed out to people reading this forum that it's possible for MMORPGs to be better than they are.

[Deleted]

Some gamers can't even imagine that mindless grinding is not the pinnacle of gaming. Blows my mind every time they refuse to add fun things to the game and prefer to keep on the gear treadmill focus because no fun is allowed, this is serious business trololol. Yep, sure gonna make the MMO genre great again while other genres keep evolving and remain games not chores

[Zelorra]

Nothing is optional in WoW if you want to play any relevant content . I mean in a sense it is optional because its just a game but you can't justify every game with "its optional don't play" otherwise there is no room for improvement.

So regarding wow progression system,where is the option again? If you want the best gear you need to raid normal/heroic and then mythic. Mythic dungeons are a new feature after 12 years of waiting and the rewards are still weaker. You might say its normal because raids are "harder" but thats not an option then, its a mandatory path. PvP? PvP has been the same old battlegrounds and arenas since BC, nothing has evolved but the devs having no clue about how to balance their pvp game and even with Legion they still fail hard. PvP is just bad in this game...its a secondary form of content just like anything else in this game besides raiding.

What't wrong with doing progressive tier raiding? I doubt that mythic raiders do any normal raiding anyway. Would you prefer to have only one difficulty and only 2% of the players to be able to finish it? Bad for you then...
PvP is not bad, there are just a lot of bad people at PvP, blaming the PvP itself. There are people that have been gladiators since S1 and I don't hear them bitching about it. Even saying "old battlegrounds and arenas since BC" shows that you're either completely biased or completely retarded, given the myriad of PvP changes, including new battlegrounds and arenas "since BC".
The problem with PvP and the "balance" is that it is extremely hard to balance so many classes and specs. When you say "devs having no clue about how to balance their pvp game", you better come up with some solution yourself, to show us how much more intelligent you are, maybe they will fire Holinka and hire you instead, you never know (yeah, right).
Another problem with "balance" is that there's no such thing as "measurable balance". Even if you achieve some mathematical proven balance, though some motherfucking balancing miracle, there will still be a ton of bad players yelling that there's no "balance", simply because they suck a fucking ass.

Actually if we take out of account gear, what progression does the game offer? This game progression system is only about gear sadly. If you want to play another way, like being a diplomat, a merchant, a trader you can't you can just "pretend" by selling things to the AH but thats hardly content developed by Blizzard. The only relevant content that receives consistent development resources and focus is raiding and gearing. The game does not give you any freedom on how to customize your character personality or face consequences for you actions, there just isn't anything designed for this. You only progress with gear and killing dragons. People like to refer to D&D to justify RPGs being about gear but thats not true, D&D is clearly not about gearing up, its about impersonating and seeing the results of your choices. Choices which....well in all the recent MMOs...do not exist.

WoW is not a pure MMO and it never was. You were never supposed to play any fucking diplomat or merchant. Even the rare occurrences when you could change the reputation they were just crazy grinds. Would have been nice to be able to maybe become friendly with the opposite faction, I think so... But now it's much to late for that kind of shit...

This game, as an MMO, does not live up to the whole "persistent, living,dynamic world" MMOs should offer. Which current MMOs actually offer that? Most of them are just on-rail theme parks identical to WoW with no freedom and no interaction with the world at all. They just follow the same linear progression system that revolves around a gear treadmill and instanced content.

There's no game that offers what you wish and it will never exist. Why? Because it's not sustainable from a business point of view, nobody can create fresh content at a rate in which is consumed

[Arny]

The thing about using "the grind" as content is that tons of people love it, maybe not the majority, but enough that it keeps the game going. So they add stuff around "the grind" so that other people will join, all while trying to maintain the core grinders who put in the bulk of time. I think WoW did this very well up until WoD. Now with Legion they are bringing some of it back, while also maintaining the casual aspects that bring in the money.

[hulkgor]

Good times.