Basically i'm just asking for anyone/everyone's opinion who has wondered about the usage of the word.  I'll go first.

Grind - Any repetative task used to increase your character's overall level of power in an online game.

The only answers i'm asking you not to give are the ones that reference any specific games.  No "WoW is a grind because..." or "...and thats why EQ was a grind".  Those are wrong answers, I'm seeing who can define the word without using any games.

"Any overly repetitive and time consuming task, used primarily to slow progression and lengthen the time a subscriber must be paying for in order to accomplish something."

Some grinds have nothing to do with gaining power.  Some just open the ability to open the ability which MAY open the door to eventually gaining some power at some point.  READ: Rep grinds for heroic keys in WoW.  Turns out those are timeblocks for raiding too...lol.

Doing a boring thing over and over again for a long time for your or someone else's gain.

A repetitive task in a MMORPG.

Grind is a purely subjective term: when the player stops having fun, that's where the grind starts. One player can think killing 10 of the same mobs is a grind, while a very motivated player could kill 1000 of these mobs.

Developers have invented the grind because they simply can't produce new contents at the speed the gamers consume it. The grind is needed to keep the players happy and playing and paying. The grind is a necessary evil.

Originally posted by Gishgeron

"Any overly repetitive and time consuming task, used primarily to slow progression and lengthen the time a subscriber must be paying for in order to accomplish something."

 

Some grinds have nothing to do with gaining power.  Some just open the ability to open the ability which MAY open the door to eventually gaining some power at some point.  READ: Rep grinds for heroic keys in WoW.  Turns out those are timeblocks for raiding too...lol.

"a subscriber must be paying for" does not include any free to play games that don't have a subscription or force you to pay anything.

"Thoughtless" tasks that must be repeated again and again - especially ones that can be performed alternatively by bots.

Grind. When developers die and go to gate of heaven and God asks them why they put Grind in games, I really hope they got a good excuse..

Grind = Boring, irritating, repetetive, not challenging at all.

Games are suppose to be fun.

No Grinds are not nessesery evil.. They arent nessesery at all.. If you can create some kind of dynamic game, that can always create new challenging missions/quests.. Where the story progress based on player actions, then we wouldnt need grind.

Grind is just a poor development excuse.

Originally posted by Drolletje

Grind is a purely subjective term: when the player stops having fun, that's where the grind starts. One player can think killing 10 of the same mobs is a grind, while a very motivated player could kill 1000 of these mobs.

Developers have invented the grind because they simply can't produce new contents at the speed the gamers consume it. The grind is needed to keep the players happy and playing and paying. The grind is a necessary evil.

So, let my pose a question based on this.  The common thing I think people refer to in specifc games as grind are those things the feel they have to do to become powerful.  Chasing after more levels and loot are the 2 big ones.

Remove all things in the game that you improve to increase your characters power.  Skills, Gear, Levels... all of them.

How many on these forums would play such a game?

Originally posted by ShadowZERO

 

Originally posted by Drolletje

Grind is a purely subjective term: when the player stops having fun, that's where the grind starts. One player can think killing 10 of the same mobs is a grind, while a very motivated player could kill 1000 of these mobs.

Developers have invented the grind because they simply can't produce new contents at the speed the gamers consume it. The grind is needed to keep the players happy and playing and paying. The grind is a necessary evil.

I think this is what I was looking for.  There is no real definition because "grind" is more a state of mind than any 1 thing.  People toss out the term "grind" because they feel a task in a certain game has become boring and repetative.

 

So, let my pose a question based on this.  The common thing I think people refer to in specifc games as grind are those things the feel they have to do to become powerful.  Chasing after more levels and loot are the 2 big ones.

Remove all things in the game that you improve to increase your characters power.  Skills, Gear, Levels... all of them.

How many on these forums would play such a game?

I would be all in for such a game. The only question is: how long will we keep playing this game? If there is absolutely no grind, how long will it be 'till we all are 'been there, done that' and quit the game?

One way I see to attain the huge amount of new content needed for such a game, is allowing the players to create their own quests, mobs, dungeons and locations. User-created content is generally lower in quality but I'd rather experience some new content a fellow player created than going through the same developer-created content again.

Originally posted by Drolletje

 

Originally posted by ShadowZERO

 

Originally posted by Drolletje

Grind is a purely subjective term: when the player stops having fun, that's where the grind starts. One player can think killing 10 of the same mobs is a grind, while a very motivated player could kill 1000 of these mobs.

Developers have invented the grind because they simply can't produce new contents at the speed the gamers consume it. The grind is needed to keep the players happy and playing and paying. The grind is a necessary evil.

I think this is what I was looking for.  There is no real definition because "grind" is more a state of mind than any 1 thing.  People toss out the term "grind" because they feel a task in a certain game has become boring and repetative.

 

So, let my pose a question based on this.  The common thing I think people refer to in specifc games as grind are those things the feel they have to do to become powerful.  Chasing after more levels and loot are the 2 big ones.

Remove all things in the game that you improve to increase your characters power.  Skills, Gear, Levels... all of them.

How many on these forums would play such a game?

 

I would be all in for such a game. The only question is: how long will we keep playing this game? If there is absolutely no grind, how long will it be 'till we all are 'been there, done that' and quit the game?

One way I see to attain the huge amount of new content needed for such a game, is allowing the players to create their own quests, mobs, dungeons and locations. User-created content is generally lower in quality but I'd rather experience some new content a fellow player created than going through the same developer-created content again.

There was however, another answer to my question.  Me.  Look at my sig, I also play Half-Life.  Just pointing to that and saying that FPS games have none of the above would have been the easy answer.  Once again, good job thinking outside the box.

Any activity which I doesn't want to do.  It may be 1 second or 20 hours, it is too long.  (Raiding, PvP, RvR are all example of "grind" for me)

The only possible way to "remove grind" is to have specific servers:

- Grouping server, everything is earned in groups.

- Raiding servers, start at max level.

- PvP servers, whatever they want.

- RvR servers, whatever they want.

- Casual servers, gain a level everytime you want.

Honestly, what happen on another server doesn't bother me.  The test server also exist and you can play whatever you want there, why not make a casual server?  Don't care, if the casuals find it fun and play a month, it is a month...and if they want a harder challenge, they will consider other servers after.

As used on THESE forums?

Generally I find that 'grind' is invoked on these forums any time a poster wants to throw a temper tantrum because there isn't a 'win' button.

But the above responses are a more accurate definition, if you remove the part of how mmorpg members use it.

Originally posted by ShadowZERO

Basically i'm just asking for anyone/everyone's opinion who has wondered about the usage of the word.  I'll go first.

Grind - Any repetative task used to increase your character's overall level of power in an online game.

The only answers i'm asking you not to give are the ones that reference any specific games.  No "WoW is a grind because..." or "...and thats why EQ was a grind".  Those are wrong answers, I'm seeing who can define the word without using any games.

Bad grind is a repetitive tasks in an MMO, and you feel like you're just doing it over and over, because there aren't enough variety of missions to make it feel different.  BUT like I've said in other forums, every MMO is going to have a form of grind, it just depends on if there is enough variety to make it not feel like a grind.  Take a good FPS like say Call of Duty 4.  You have mulitple type of missions to keep your interest.  You have your regular run and kill missions, you have your C130 mission where you're bombing from above, you have your sniper mission and so on.  Its still a grind, but there are different types of missions and also there are different ways of doing the missions.  in your average MMO you go up to a mob and you click on it then click a number or function key to carry out the attack, then at that point it a roll of the dice.  In a good FPS, you can sneak up on someone, you can flank them, you can do a head shot to kill them and more.  The idea of a good game isn't to lessen the grind but to give more variety in the game, some spontaneity.

Originally posted by Zorgo

As used on THESE forums?

Generally I find that 'grind' is invoked on these forums any time a poster wants to throw a temper tantrum because there isn't a 'win' button.

But the above responses are a more accurate definition, if you remove the part of how mmorpg members use it.

Anofayle said:  "The only possible way to "remove grind" is to have specific servers".  I think this can't happen because of the above example.  I think if you divide servers up like he/she said, those groups will fight amongst themselves on forums or whatever, and it will instill a sense of bad community.

Repetative task to get gold, exp, faction or armor.

Like grinding faction in wow to start grinding armor

Originally posted by Kilmar

Repetative task to get gold, exp, faction or armor.

Like grinding faction in wow to start grinding armor

Notice how I'm challenging people to think ouside the box here.  Basically, i'm seeing if the players of mmorpgs can actually think like developers of the same.  Not an easy task, few have stepped up to the challenge.  We have kind of departed from the original post.

I prefer MMOs, where equipment isnt so important. So I dont have to do the same dungeon over and over and over again to get good gear. In wow you have to do the same dungeon like 100 times to get enough gear to compete in the next dungeon. Thats what I'm calling armor grind. Then there are games, where armor isnt so important, and you can go in harder dungeons without grinding armor for months.

Originally posted by Kilmar

I prefer MMOs, where equipment isnt so important. So I dont have to do the same dungeon over and over and over again to get good gear. In wow you have to do the same dungeon like 100 times to get enough gear to compete in the next dungeon. Thats what I'm calling armor grind. Then there are games, where armor isnt so important, and you can go in harder dungeons without grinding armor for months.

This is the opposite of what i'm looking for.  How would you, as a deveoper, solve this problem?  Not what you like and don't.  We all have things we like and don't.  Question is, seeing how certain problems have been solved(or even more importantly, not solved) in other games, how would you solve this problem if YOU were devloping a game?