The grinding drug and GW

You are closing in on one of the spawning spots for the boss carrying the elite skill you want. You went there 5 times alredy only to find that worthless other boss. This time you suddenly see that bright colored aura, your heart beating a little faster... "YES! ITS THE RIGHT ONE!". You kill the boss... activate your signet, and get that warm fuzzy feeling seeing the skill unlocked box with the golden border around the skill.

I think most people experience this, even if you hate the skillgrinding and want UAS. It's human nature, we love getting things. The random spawning of the bosses just makes it feel even more nice when you finally catch them. The more annoying getting that skill is, the better it feels finally getting it.

Now imagine average joe playing GW. He probably dosn't have much of a clue what he's doing so he won't bother with team strategies other then "get a monk", will never win the hall of heroes, if he ever goes tombing at all. He's probably not going to get in a guild that will ever do GvG. He will play in the random arena with his W/MO. He dosn't care about "becoming competitive" (getting all the skills/runes). But he sure as hell can experience that feeling of getting new skills I described. At first he will just get skills from quests, not elite ones, but still the same feeling. Completing a quest and getting 2 new toys. This is what draws in the average casual person the most I think. Of course, people get addicted, want more. They want to experience the feeling of getting something again.

For the hardcore player there's the desire to get to the top, have all skills, finally play the game as it should be played. For example be lvl 60 in WoW so you can't be killed by a higher lvl, but instead have a fair fight. Then you realise you need gear, the carrot is always there in front of you. It's the same in Guildwars, you want all the skills so you can finally play the game as you think it was meant to be played. Changing your build however you want to counter or to make up new strats.

Then you finally get closer to that point, after playing for hundreds of hours doing repetitive crap you don't really enjoy. Getting those little thrills I described helps you through the grindmud. What happens at this point is usually that you realise there is no great awesome gameplay at the end of the grinding threadmill. I played WoW and finally got to lvl 60 with a character and tested out what it was like doing PvP at this point. It was crap simply put, and I just stopped playing. In guildwars, it's the same thing. It's not really as crappy as WoW, but theres still a lot of flaws in the game you will discover. Like Natures Renewal screwing up the game balance. Guild vs Guild and Tombs isn't that great, there's a lot of stuff you wish were different. See what other people covered on this in other threads.

It seems to me like the progress drug and grinding addiction is just taking over the whole game industry. They realised it's so much easier to just cover up your game flaws with huge grinding instead of making a genuine game. It works. People make up expectations while grinding away and hope that they will finally get to play that great game if only they can get through all the grind. I think it's sad, soon we will be seeing RTS games where you have to unlock units, FPS where you grind for guns and extra hp.

I always liked reasonable doses of the drug tough, like the old RTSes and FPS where you played the single player campaign and got more units/guns at about the speed it took to familiarize yourself with them. The pvp (multiplayer) was always seperate from this, all the stuff was available. It was still nice to play the single player campaign (once) before to learn and discover the game. It was your choice to do so, and I always did.

In every game, people will play for however many hours it takes to be the best, and then realize than there is nothing more to do except quit. If there was a game out there that didn't follow this rule, we'd all be playing it now.

Thats true, and there's always going to be someone better then you, thats why you can play a game thats about pure competition forever.

....and i am, its called sim city and no matter what u do to be the best, I.E get sky scrapers, nucelar plants, cleanest cities. There is always something that goes wrong and thats what I love about it. Still playen it and havent gotten that pefect city that never goes wrong. but I will try!

Not ALWAYS.. But only one person gets the feeling hes the best of all human beings in this game..

Frankly I like Natures Renewal. There is no way to strip the lamers who use the enchant builds without it. When enchantments run unchecked the game quickly becomes ridiculous. Especially in a 4 vs 4 situation. Im often the only person with a strip enchant skill, 20 second cooldown is a joke. The enemy can recast enchants faster than I can strip them. And in many cases, monks being the worst, they are impossible to kill with all these enchants.

Well, in general, I meant most RPG's But yes, there are those games that have their "infinite replayability", but even if it's a different situation every time, the game is still the same and someday you'll grow tired of it. If your lucky though ( like it seems you are ) you'll find that one game that you could just play forever. For you - Sim City, for me - Tribes

For me Civilization 3. I need to get a new copy of that game. I played it so much I warped the CD in the part that checks the game to the cd to make sure it isn't pirated.

Sim City 3000 Umlimited for me, great version. I have never gotten a city to 100k pop yet. But I still don't get tired of trying!

Sim City rules! still at the 2000 series though....

Hehe, agreed civ3 ROCKS! btw... its possible to get.. cough.. cough.. free... cough.. on.. cough.. bit... cough torrents

I think we all know very well that the Civilization series is the god of the "never get enough of it" games.

Civ IV, winter 2005
http://www.firaxis.com/games/game_detail.php?gameid=6

Spore Q4 2006 suckers
but i'll still be playing Guild Wars then to, so it doesn't matter

A: There is no grind in GW. You can't consider playing the game a grind... You don't need everything unlocked to be the best. You simply need the important things. One day if you come along something or they buff something you go out and get it.

B: All games will get boring sooner or later.

C: Natures renewal isn't broken... Oh noes it slaughters groups who build an entire strategy around enchantments!

It feels great, thanks for remembering me.

I forgot what the point of this thread was again.... No ingame name/guild I'm forced to assume you're just some person whos 8 man smite team got owned by natures renewal after grinding for your elites.

My favorite thing in the whole entire world is skill capping. Me, Alesia(Mhenlo), Lina, Little Thom, Stefan(Devona), and whoever else wants to join from that group that meets me at every town. I could skill cap all day long. Though only once have I had to rezone because the boss I came for was not there.

Counter-Strike

but some people may hate it when they have to kill a few enemies or win a few rounds before they can afford the best weapons...

If you want to know grind play Lineage 2 on an official server Now that is grind Seriously, I had the chance to play the game... put it down after 2 days, couldnt take it anymore I like(dont play it much anymore though) Guild wars because:

a) Little grind, little walking around(again you play lineage 2 and you realize walking SUCKS!!!!)
b) such beautiful grafix that run so well on my 4 yr old pc

~prime

There is no grind in Guild Wars. And that thing outside your house is not a black helicopter.

NR is not overpowered. Its just more equal then all the other skills.


Grind is Gameplay! Unlock is Player Skill! Pvp is balanced!

Move along, citizen.

I loved CS.. especially playing on a LAN with my friends IRL. Luckily I didn't mind the cheaper weapons so I usually just stuck with those and could get in a nice streak every now and again.