Don't Mind The Grind!

breakpointUK

breakpointUK
I know, I know...

but I have been thinking about what I consider to be my long haul gaming experiences...

Frontier: Elite II (Amiga)
Spent hours upon hours doing trade runs, package drops and combating pirates.

Final Fantasy 7 (PSX)
Spent hours upon hours levelling all the characters and working out methods to greatly increase AP, by staying in a certain location and spinning around to enter battle sequences with certain enemies, every character had full combined materia for each type.

Freelancer (PC)
... performing trade runs, killing wave after wave of nomads to pick up special weaponry to give to clan members via an alt account 2nd PC online at the same time, teaching new clan recruits how to perform better at dog fights and basically waste time performing sentry duty.

Oblivion (Xbox 360/PC/PS3)
... over a total of 1000hrs invested in this one, multi character setups, all skills at 100, all items, all houses, stupid amounts of septims, all gates closed... etc etc

WoW (PC)
... i grinded my mats like crazy, funny thing is that i was collecting ore without having the map locations marked, purely running/riding around reading the landscape. 15th best fury warrior (before MoPs) on my realm after only 1 year!

Tetris
For me the best game ever made, simple... perfect. If aliens landed tomorrow and asked me to (pray they don't), "describe humanity". I would answer "play Tetris".

To say I don't mind a grind is an understatement!

But, in recent threads much has been said about microtranactions...

... in WoW i could of bought an impressive mountable dragon for £24.99 (ish), but i spent hours upon hours (around 2 months) saving tol barad point for the wings of the west (could be north) dragon... yes it was a grind, but I had friends to talk to and raids to do.... but it was worth it, I had an impressive dragon that people knew I had got the hard way!

So question is am I alone in not minding the grind?
 
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Cmdr Eagleboy

Cmdr Eagleboy
breakpointUK said:
So question is am I alone in not minding the grind?
Click to expand...

No, you ain't alone. I enjoy grinding in good looking game with beautiful or immerse setup - like WoW 7 years ago, LOTRO, FE2, FFE...I don't have too much free time these days, but still I grind.

I think what have made many people resentful about grinding is MMOs, where you clean field of baddies, go to report back with sense of accomplishment, then you run near place to other quest - and see they they are back.

But yeah, grinding rocks.
 

Hamerstein

Hamerstein
I think there's grinding and then there's grinding.

So long as you gain some sense of fulfilment from doing it - it doesn't matter if to others it appears like a grind - it isn't to you. With the breadth and depth of play suggested for ED, I can see many players doing things that may be boring for others (ie. a grind) but for them it's hours of what they want to be doing.

The only boring thing would be if we all thought the same way eh? ;)
 

Greeboski

G
Liqua said:
Easy way - Pay for it.

Hard way - Play in-game by doing the same quest 60+ times and saving up the reward voucher. Once you have enough vouchers turning them in at the right NPC to be given the dragon mount. That, he said, took him around 2 months.
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and there is the reason those who 'can't afford/refuse to pay' can become a tad narky about in game shops (even if only at a sub concious level) 2 months V £25
 

Hellhawk666

Hellhawk666
breakpointUK said:
So question is am I alone in not minding the grind?
Click to expand...

No, I don't mind grinding away or farming mats. I usually do it while talking to mates or watching TV. The hours slip by and suddenly - 250 units of granite, the required number of enemies, etc.

Then again, I don't count farming or grinding in the same category of "playing" as a good raid, and I couldn't care less if someone else wants to pay to achieve the same sort of goal. I'm having my fun, they're having theirs. The only thing I don't like is when money can buy something that can't be earned in gameplay, or worse, something better than can be earned in gameplay.
 

Ian Phillips

Volunteer Moderator
Ian Phillips
Hamerstein said:
I think there's grinding and then there's grinding.

So long as you gain some sense of fulfilment from doing it - it doesn't matter if to others it appears like a grind - it isn't to you. With the breadth and depth of play suggested for ED, I can see many players doing things that may be boring for others (ie. a grind) but for them it's hours of what they want to be doing.

The only boring thing would be if we all thought the same way eh? ;)
Click to expand...

I agree.
 

loststargirl

loststargirl
To be honest I am already fearing the grinding. And I am afraid I won't accept it :S But that's the problem gaming today brings :(

Back on the C64 I didn't know what grinding was and so I didn't mind I was grinding. I also didn't mind waiting for hours floating around in-space before any action, as ingame-time couldn't be fast-forwarded (like in Frontier).

I also didn't know what other things were.... like playing on a too slow computer with low framerates. When I was in hyperspace attacked by Thargoids and the C64 stuttering which got better blasting another ship away, one at the time. I never for a second thought of getting upgrades to play a smoother Elite (or any other game).
 

Arbanax

Arbanax
Tinman said:
Repetitive gameplay that is boring = grinding
Repetitive gameplay that is fun = not grinding

;)
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I think that you've nailed it Tin Man, however expectations are very different today about what is fun. I think that if there can be additional unexpected elements, random stuff that happens on trade routes, to add sparkle. A rogue comet, a rescue mission, interstellar convergences, news reports and feeds that make for an interesting diversion, then the back and forth, or just being stuck at an asteroid mining etc, need not seem quite so monotonous.

Ab
 
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deusx_ophc

deusx_ophc
Tinman said:
Repetitive gameplay that is boring = grinding
Repetitive gameplay that is fun = not grinding

;)
Click to expand...

+ rep ^^


so guess what, i abhor doing mindless tasks just once. to repeat them is a crime against intellect and time. to the extend that i cannot fathom to find out the most lucrative trade routes in ed and re-run them x times.

i do not spend hrs upon hrs just to reach an "endgame" or to be competitive because am not into self-delusion and sadism (much anyways ;))

give me quick fix, smart, open, competitive pvp games. or give me a proper sandbox, else foff :mad:
 

amigacooke

amigacooke
I think this is linked to achievement.

Buy new cobra for £25, sense of achievement = none
Earn a new cobra by trading, mining, bounty hunting, escaping by the skin of your teeth, sense of achievement = priceless.
 
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