Originally Posted by
Xuvial
That depends on your definition of "grind".
I've always felt that if it's a job that you can simply automate a robot to do and YOU are having to do it endlessly, that is a grind. E.g. look at Runescape.
If you're having to coordinate people, and have to use your brain....it's not a grind, even if you're doing it for hours and hours. Progressing from boss to boss in raids, discussing mechanics, analyzing your DPS/heals/tanks is not a grind even if it takes weeks. I'll take WoW's "grind" over Aion/Lineage's grind any day...."kill 20,000 mobs in this zone to next level. level up, gratz! now kill 50,000 of these"...that's a grind.
Considering Cata has brought more changes/overhauls than what has happened in the entire history of WoW...doesn't really make sense when you say that :P
The game's difficulty, depth and quality has been stepped up substantially - if a new player was to join Wow, I am doubtless that they would be blown away and would continue to keep playing for a long time, it has never been a better time to join. We've been playing for a long time and it's hard to impress us, but a brand new player's reaction to Cataclysm would be 5x better than a new player's reaction to Vanilla/TBC/WotLK.