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[SirNiko]

If you want to maximize the amount of time that someone wastes on your game, drop the good rewards at random time intervals.  When an intelligent organism cannot predict the pattern of reward drops, the organism tries harder, harder, harder.  When this is done in the service of nothing more than making an imaginary number inside of a computer's memory get larger, it raises ethical issues.

While randomness does increase time sunk, I don't think it's critical for something to be a grind. Some games present the player with very non-random tasks, such as kill X monsters or earn X million points from completing fetch quests that are still 'grindy'. The key is that the activity is not mentally stimulating, but it is required to unlock access to the next step. We have an advantage over skinnerian conditioning in that we can be told how many times we must press the bar to get a reward, or the odds of the reward coming per press, whereas the rat has to figure it out via trial and error.

Most grind games (even ones based on randomness) tend to have end goals. Eventually you can collect all the equipment. Eventually you can find all the pets, or reach the highest level. It's the fact that you can set and reach goals that make these attractive and addictive in a way that drugs, alcohol and gambling are not, and in a way that is far less likely to destroy your life unless you choose to let it. Game designers, even exploitive ones, need to seek a balance to ensure that goals are sufficiently lofty to drive players to spend more time playing, but not so lofty that players declare them out of reach. I found grinding bosses for chips in Megaman Battle Network to be a bit on the dull side, but the amount of time it took was not so great and when you hit a milestone you could move on to a different task. On the other hand, collecting roses in We Love Katamari was simply too dull and time consuming for me to consider. I think I hit maybe 100,000 and decided that the time input simply was not worthwhile. I've never gone back.

[bvanevery]

While randomness does increase time sunk, I don't think it's critical for something to be a grind. Some games present the player with very non-random tasks, such as kill X monsters or earn X million points from completing fetch quests that are still 'grindy'.

Those X monsters drop items.  That's how players are kept grinding.  Same with busting crates and barrels.  People will still grind even when they've started to realize that it's not worth it, that it's not all that profitable in game terms.

The key is that the activity is not mentally stimulating,

The item drops provide a stimulation to the brain.

Most grind games (even ones based on randomness) tend to have end goals.

Imagine, if you will, a greater tapestry of life pursuits, dotted with little tiny pills of crack along the way.  The crack is what keeps you playing.  If there were only end goals, fatigue would set in, you'd realize this is boring, you'd quit.

[unsilentwill]

How someone can argue for grinding is beyond me. I'll give this a shot...

By mentally stimulating, he obviously meant that the battle takes more thought than press A for 3 hours.

If the end goal is boring, (why-should-I-save-the-world syndrome) than the designer is doing something seriously wrong. Make other characters endearing, interesting (maybe you could learn something from them), make the actions of the villain so repulsive you feel the need to stop them immediately, give them a time limit, etc. If the player is just playing for the item drops of endorphins, that is essentially purposefully addicting themselves. Which is World of Warcraft bad.

The point is, grinding is a lazy mechanic because it says "You are not Number enough to do this action. Play our game for hours (without any real challenge) until you are higher Number". It's funny for a genre based on DnD with so many different classes, the only way to ever solve problems is by brute force by higher numbers. Let the rouge (skillfully) backstab the lvl 50 bossman. Let low level characters do more on their way to higher levels, and you'll avoid grinding.

Or and as the original topic goes, money in games should come from the people you save. Simple.

[SirNiko]

The point is, grinding is a lazy mechanic because it says "You are not Number enough to do this action. Play our game for hours (without any real challenge) until you are higher Number".

To me this is mostly the reason I consider it bad. It serves as a lock for further content. The player is no longer playing for fun, but rather, they're weighing the cost of unlocking that content with the entertainment they will gain from that content. You could let the player move on to interesting content now and they would lose that boring time-sink. To me that is grind executed poorly.

But then, there are players who like that, for for reasons I do not share. Possibly they enjoy the suffering involved, so they can feel superior or accomplished. Or perhaps they just have vast swathes of free time they want to fill by playing a mindless game while chatting with friends or listening to radio. Whatever the reason, they like it, and companies are eager to provide. Why not let them enjoy that, in the same way that some people want to play competitive games and others just want to play co-op?

[bvanevery]

Or perhaps they just have vast swathes of free time

That one.

Whatever the reason, they like it,

That doesn't follow.  Skinnerian Conditioning is a successful motivator; doesn't mean people like what they're doing.  Can you ground this in a tangible?  Find one of these players who really really likes grinding for its own sake?  I've never met one, but I don't try to meet every player out there.

and companies are eager to provide.

because it's cheap content fill.

Why not let them enjoy that, in the same way that some people want to play competitive games and others just want to play co-op?

How much money do these grinders with copious free time have?  Or do they have all that free time because they're unemployed?  Or are they kids with access to Mommy's credit card?  If they are kids, there are ethical considerations to having them waste away in front of the screen for many hours a day.  A video game should at least stretch their brain somewhat, or stimulate them creatively.  It shouldn't just be them pressing a button wasting away all day.  China has enacted stiff laws about this for instance, with the penalties being the kid is sent to a deprogramming camp at the parents' expense.  If the players are adults, and the grind isn't so horrific that we're worried about ethics, then it's a question of whether you make a lot of money off their grinding or not.  I know a lot of adults who do not have this kind of time on their hands anymore.  I would rather try to take money from adults who have "normal" amounts of time, because I think there are far more of those than the ones who can grind.

As a game designer, grinding bores me to death, so that's a further reason why I wouldn't make such games.  To the extent that I want to sell a competing product, I will try to convince other people that grinding is boring, as that's in my financial self-interest.  You could call that Machiavellian and intolerant, if it weren't for the crappiness and life depleting aspects of grinding in the 1st place.

I'd rather see the game industry shun grinding than embrace it.  It would make the industry have more interesting jobs, or consulting gigs.  Games might be taken more seriously as an Art form if the industry dumps the crutch of grinding.  This in turn could lead to more money, fame, and creative freedom for game designers.

This is a case where I think Existentialism holds true, i.e. as you choose for yourself, you choose for others.  I know there's a camp that thinks "games are just fine as they are" and doesn't want any major change in how they are made.  The argument has been going on for a long time.  I remember a time in the mid-90s when half the game industry didn't recognize the validity of a "game designer" as a job title.  They thought programmers could design games just fine and a specialist putting on such airs was not necessary.  That argument is pretty much settled now, although programmers do still design games.

[gimymblert]

What would replace grinding if you toss it?

(I mean a progression mechanics that is for padding content)

[SirNiko]

Whatever the reason, they like it,

That doesn't follow.  Skinnerian Conditioning is a successful motivator; doesn't mean people like what they're doing.  Can you ground this in a tangible?  Find one of these players who really really likes grinding for its own sake?  I've never met one, but I don't try to meet every player out there.

My anecdote was triggered because I met a player who stated that grinding was the central mechanic for a game (Aion: Tower of Eternity was the game in question, though it is known by many former players like myself as Aion: Grind of Eternity) and said he was upset by players who didn't accept the grind and revel in it. If not for him, I would have never brought it up.

He's not the only one I know, especially if you talk to fans of Korean MMOs (Like Aion and Lineage 2) you'll hear a lot of talk about pampered players, or hatred of games with soft EXP curves. "WoW ruined the genre" is a common mantra, suggesting that casualizing MMOs by making the grind less severe and making short play sessions rewarding is destructive to the true benefits of MMOs.

But otherwise yeah, I agree. Grind mechanics are cheap to produce (and not in a good way) for the playtime they provide. The difficulty is artificial, and taken the wrong way and in the wrong doses it can be destructive to the player. You're preaching to the choir on that.

[Muz]

How someone can argue for grinding is beyond me.

Because thousands (millions?) of players play games with heavy grinding involved. Some enjoy it, some see it as a "the lesser of the evils", while the creators just see it as the easiest way to make money. Charge $30 for every player or convince a single player to pay $300 to skip the grind... it's a win/win situation for a lot of people.

The point is, grinding is a lazy mechanic because it says "You are not Number enough to do this action. Play our game for hours (without any real challenge) until you are higher Number".

To me this is mostly the reason I consider it bad. It serves as a lock for further content. The player is no longer playing for fun, but rather, they're weighing the cost of unlocking that content with the entertainment they will gain from that content. You could let the player move on to interesting content now and they would lose that boring time-sink. To me that is grind executed poorly.

The purpose of grind is always a content lock/dilutor. It's not always a bad thing, only when it's overdone or noticable. The reason most people like the grind is that it lets them unlock unique content, but doesn't allow others. You could be the only person in the whole game world to get the +300 Crystal Sword of Norath after clicking in a certain location for 3000 hours. That's the kind of achievement people go for it. Others may be able to buy 1000 hours of clicking for $20 (which may just be an hour of RL work for them).

[bvanevery]

said he was upset by players who didn't accept the grind and revel in it.

Hm, in his case it sounds like some kind of badass cult.  Compare permadeath or "no save" fanatics.  A question however is whether the grinding is difficult and demonstrates skill, or whether it's an easy task done forever.  People racked up ridiculously high scores in the days of classic arcades, but it was a demonstration of skill.  Also, it was not possible to play an arcade game for months, as one couldn't take a break.  One had to gain the high score in 1 session.

suggesting that casualizing MMOs by making the grind less severe and making short play sessions rewarding is destructive to the true benefits of MMOs.

Perhaps also it is a social exclusion filter.  If you don't grind then you shouldn't be part of the club.  Grinding is merit.  Grinding is a Protestant Work Ethic?

[gimymblert]

look Wow solve it on one quest! Did i see that gameplay somewhere?

[Sorano]

Yea, WoW as always handled questing with less grind than other mmo's. Cataclysm will again push more diversified quests, area and content. So far the leveling seems to become more interesting than the end-game.

Peacebloom vs Ghouls. Really now.

[s0]

Yea, WoW as always handled questing with less grind than other mmo's.

That's still a lot of grind by general game standards though (at least last time I played, which was before any of the addons came out), and therein lies the problem.

[SirNiko]

The grinding is sort of shifted off to a secondary activity, though. For the most part you can just wander around and do whatever you want. Run instances with friends? Run PvP Battlegrounds? Do quests by yourself? Craft stuff?

You can basically pick one activity you like and do they to the exclusion of everything else in the game and still unlock pretty much everything. You can even be choosier than that, by ignoring entire zones of content if you have no interest.

There still exists grindy content, like mounts you get only if you kill ten thousand murloc or a 0.01% drop rate pet for farming a boss for weeks, but they're things you can easily ignore at no degradation to your play experience. It's really no different from, say, that 1/256 drop rate frying pan in Earthbound or fighting 255 battles in Final Fantasy 6 to uncurse the cursed shield and for the most part I considered both of those games to have lite to nonexistant grind.

[bvanevery]

The grinding is sort of shifted off to a secondary activity, though. For the most part you can just wander around and do whatever you want.

Actually you cannot.  When you do try to wander, you find out you're not powerful enough to wander indefinitely.  The only way I could wander a lot was when dead.  At the slowness that WoW allows you to move, it gets old after trying it for 1 day.

Run instances with friends? Run PvP Battlegrounds?

Unappealing to the soloist.  I'm not convinced that anyone sticks with WoW unless they primarily value the social club.

Do quests by yourself?

I played a 10 day demo rather intensely 2 years ago.  A few of the quests showed some creativity, like the pumpkin poison quest, and beating slaves with a cudgel to make them work harder.  Otherwise, most of the quests were either "take A to B," "clear out this dungeon," or "kill X for bounty."  Rather grindy in my experience. 

Craft stuff?

Gaining crafting ingredients is grinding.  Particularly in WoW, which is deliberately designed to take a long time to get from A to B.

[s0]

he only way I could wander a lot was when dead.  At the slowness that WoW allows you to move, it gets old after trying it for 1 day.

Run instances with friends? Run PvP Battlegrounds?

Unappealing to the soloist.  I'm not convinced that anyone sticks with WoW unless they primarily value the social club.

In all fairness though, if you prefer singleplayer experiences, maybe a massively multiplayer online RPG just isn't the right game for you.

[jethrolarson]

Grinding can be plenty stimulating. But only if the genre is dance game

[bvanevery]

Run instances with friends? Run PvP Battlegrounds?

Unappealing to the soloist.  I'm not convinced that anyone sticks with WoW unless they primarily value the social club.

In all fairness though, if you prefer singleplayer experiences, maybe a massively multiplayer online RPG just isn't the right game for you.

DDO gets it.  They have solo content.  The user base of WoW has plateaued, they don't get it.  I represent a potential market, people who want "a big ass world to explore."  WoW doesn't want my money, they want the social club for some reason.

[SirNiko]

I actually have a lot of friends who play WoW solo. As in, they play with friends, but then they make a separate character or even account just to wander the world, see the monsters, do the quests, play with the crafting system. You can even jump into an instance with a random group you will never see again just by hitting a button, no need to even ask in the local chat. WoW is exceptionally well suited to the soloist, which I think is another huge reason for its success. It's the exception when you encounter content that requires a coordinated team.

I don't see how DDO is solo friendly. When I played, the only solo quests were a half-dozen quests in the first three levels. You could solo the other quests, but only if you were exceptionally patient and had a very specific build. Even then they changed stealth (Made it so monsters eventually aggro if you hide for too long) to purposely prevent players from completing quests by hiding from everything. I don't see why you think WoW is unfriendly to the solo player and DDO is friendly, because I saw the exact opposite when I played.

[bvanevery]

WoW is exceptionally well suited to the soloist, which I think is another huge reason for its success. It's the exception when you encounter content that requires a coordinated team.

But what is there to do other than pull mobs over and over again?  That was 95% of the content I saw 2 years ago.

I don't see how DDO is solo friendly. When I played, the only solo quests were a half-dozen quests in the first three levels. You could solo the other quests, but only if you were exceptionally patient and had a very specific build.

Now that you mention it, I do remember a sticking point around Level 4.  I was running out of "free to play" dungeons that were appropriate to my level, and it was becoming difficult to progress.  I wasn't going to grind by repeating levels over again.  If I've seen the content, I've seen the content, probably too much already the way DDO was going.  It would bore me to death to do it even more times.  I remember now, there was this totally obnoxious thieving level with an acid floor.  I think I tried to get through that thing 3 times, only to come upon more horrific barriers to completion.  The DDO business model became clear: once you get past the intro stuff, offer very long tedious quests that goad you into paying real money to heal and whatnot.  No thanks.  I'm not going to pay real money for an obnoxious acid floor.  Ok, I guess you're right.  DDO has a decent intro for soloing, but you hit a brick wall around Level 4.

Even then they changed stealth (Made it so monsters eventually aggro if you hide for too long) to purposely prevent players from completing quests by hiding from everything.

That last char I played was a Rogue, so I did a lot of sneaking.  I was hoping it would give me a "free pass" to see all the content.  But, plenty of dungeons had anti-sneaking measures.  In practice, when you try to sneak past all the guards, eventually some kind of alarm sounds despite your best efforts.  Then you're surrounded by hordes of enemies with no safe area to run to.  You tend to be summarily killed.

I don't see why you think WoW is unfriendly to the solo player and DDO is friendly, because I saw the exact opposite when I played.

My memory was bad on DDO.  I played it in 2 distinct time periods, separated about 8 months apart.  The 1st time around I quit due to inadequate network bandwidth.  The 2nd time around I quit because the game itself became frustrating, I had forgotten that.

[s0]

Oh, so "soloing" is some kinda MMO jargon term that doesn't mean the same as "playing the game singleplayer", am I getting that right? In that case my earlier post makes no sense, forget I said anything.