The grind will always be there, it's all about who can cover it up best. What i can't understand is why half-arsed AI, auto-attack, the lack of interactivity and actual change in the game world have turned into trademarks for this genre. For over 10 years there should've been at least some improvement in those areas.

Anyone remember the Veeshan's Peak key?

Probably not, because it took weeks upon weeks just to get a single key that got you into the raid.

Then there was the Vex' Thal key, woohoo!

Oh and of course the Epic weapon quests. And when they said Epic, they meant it.

Number of Coldain Heads collected: 2,987,365 and still scowling.

Originally posted by Cronq

Anyone remember the Veeshan's Peak key?

Probably not, because it took weeks upon weeks just to get a single key that got you into the raid.

Then there was the Vex' Thal key, woohoo!

Oh and of course the Epic weapon quests. And when they said Epic, they meant it.

 

Number of Coldain Heads collected: 2,987,365 and still scowling.

I do. And I did like 3 epics lol.

The hardest thing with 1.5 and 2.0 was getting people to help you, it was often harder than grinding.

nobody "invented" it, it's the result of using the same 37 year old system of RNG conflict resolution.  you roll a nat 20, you hit the goblin.  you kill the goblin, it's worth 100 xp, you need 400000 more to level

what's bad is that we're still using that today to resolve conflicts when our computers have evolved the ability to do more than decide if 3 > 17

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Originally posted by Aragon100
Themepark games invented it.
Games like Everquest.
Boring games with "grinding" as their endgame.

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Sanbox games invented it.
Games like UO.
Even now I have nightmares about crafting 100000 shirts, hours of mining or casting 1000 spells to gain 0.1 in magic skill - not better then grinding exp. It's still in EvE (hehe mining asteroids anyone?), was in pre-cu SWG (mad skill grind for crafetrs).

Well, don't take this too seriously ;)
Both type of games has grind, I only wated to show you, how silly is Aragarn100's post. It not depends on game type (sanbox/linear, pvp/pve) but on game itself.

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Its the journey, not the destination. If a game is grindy, its you. (Unless it’s a game that is catering to that type of self punishment, such as SOTNW)

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The answer to where did the grind come from in every case is Everquest.

Grind levels with extra grinding hell levels that were simply more ginding for no reason other than to make you grind.

Grind quests taken to the limit with epic quests. Every class needing full guild support to complete quests !  Rezz bots need epics... Shall quests, ring quests quest quest quest...

Grinding raids started with The Sleepers Tomb where entire guilds needed to farm up melee gear so they could take their crew up against the more savage giants where you replaced grinding raids for half the guild with grinding a raid for one class. I remeber knocking the AoW off so many times I had a BoC and I was a fucking Pally... Thats what happens when you cannot afford to let other guilds kill bosses.

Grinding keys, grinding flags, grinding grinding grinding... now the devs grind expantions and lets hope they die from it.

MUDs had grind way before EQ. The one I played, had grind to advance your level, then grind some more to advance the level of each of your skills. But because it was pk, full loot it was a lot of fun.

So grind was around way before MMOs, sorry all.
 

Ask another question, what is the first MMORPG not to have grind?  And the answer sould be none, they all do.  That's what's makes them an RPG.  If they didn't have it, they would be first pearson shooters and all of you would complain that they lack "depth".

Pen and paper role playing games.

The grind comes with character advancement systems, no matter what genre you will find it where there is some form of character advancement. And that all predates video games.

Well EQ was one hell of a grind and it was the one of the first, so probably EQ and for what they say, UO, I didn't play it.

Dungeons and dragons (RL).   While it's not a grind because of it's medium, trying to turn it into a video game makes it so.

I'd say Everquest "invented" it, Wow made it popular.

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Originally posted by paulscott
Dungeons and dragons (RL).   While it's not a grind because of it's medium, trying to turn it into a video game makes it so.

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Yes and no.

If you ask me, the thing that made pen&paper rpgs awesome got lost in the transition to mmorpgs. It's the story, custom made. You have your gm who tells a story which you are part in. It's not a grind, because the actual advancement isn't really the point of the game, it's the storytelling.

Any by storytelling i mean individually crafted stories that you could actually affect. The world was yours, and you were the hero. Not a hero of ten million who all experience the same..

Originally posted by paulscott

Dungeons and dragons (RL).   While it's not a grind because of it's medium, trying to turn it into a video game makes it so.

That's true. DDO has spectacular grind in so many mmo I have played before.

Originally posted by batolemaeus

If you ask me, the thing that made pen&paper rpgs awesome got lost in the transition to mmorpgs. It's the story, custom made. You have your gm who tells a story which you are part in. It's not a grind, because the actual advancement isn't really the point of the game, it's the storytelling.

Any by storytelling i mean individually crafted stories that you could actually affect. The world was yours, and you were the hero. Not a hero of ten million who all experience the same..

It's the graphics that replaced the imagination part of the story. I remember my uncle who played D&D pen and paper told me that he was totally "lost" in the game. And that was pen and paper. And now, even with all that stunning visual effects in games, people are still mostly unsatisfied. Mind you, he was telling me that story with pride.

Guess what, he doesn't play anymore. But he is proud he's one of the pen and paper guys. It's not something most peole would say on MMOs.

Originally posted by Larry2298

Originally posted by paulscott

Dungeons and dragons (RL).   While it's not a grind because of it's medium, trying to turn it into a video game makes it so.

 

That's true. DDO has spectacular grind in so many mmo I have played before.

maybe I should edit it to P&P I was half asleep.

Originally posted by paulscott

Dungeons and dragons (RL).   While it's not a grind because of it's medium, trying to turn it into a video game makes it so.

I know where you are coming from (I do). But really, MMOs have yet to port D&D PnP in its entirety. Neverwinter Nights is the closest thing we have whereas the players can become the DMs.

A faithful port of the PnP will give players the freedom to create their own stories. It would also give the DM the power to award XP as he see fit.

I believe firmly the only true Dungeon Master games out there is perhaps Second Life / Neverwinter Nights.

You are correct; but I'm just stating that form my point of view MMORPGs are like a stepchild of D&D PnP. They're fun stepchildren but not really a true 'successor'

Dungeons and Dragons invented it.

It was perpetuated by MUD design.

UO had it in skill grinding.

EQ had it in level grinding.

But in the end it's as old as D&D.

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I know where you are coming from (I do). But really, MMOs have yet to port D&D PnP in its entirety. Neverwinter Nights is the closest thing we have whereas the players can become the DMs.
A faithful port of the PnP will give players the freedom to create their own stories. It would also give the DM the power to award XP as he see fit.

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While it's not a direct d&d game, ryzom does have this feature, kinda.

The D&D system was not intended to make a grind.  It was used so that you character would become stronger as the game progressed.  Eventually you would grow to epic proportions and be able to defeat the super evil creature at the end of the adventure. 

Originally posted by Kyleran

I don't know, "grind" is the trademark of the MMORPG genre, w/o the grind, you don't have an MMORPG, you have a FPS or adventure game.

So all MMO's have some sort of grind, even UO had you grinding skills up and there' really aren't many games that haven't forced you to grind for money, no matter how they're designed.

Another poster said it, I hit the grind in every MMO I've ever played, and I dare say even MUDDs had grind.

I really wish the Warhammer fanbois would read this and try to argue it.  Some incessantly deny that there is a grind (supporting my statement that it's really CS Source wrapped in an MMO wrapper).  Then on the other hand....if you're constantly trying to get to that next set of RR gear....how can you NOT call that a grind?

Sorry, didn't mean to interject more "War discussion" into the thread, but,  I've heard SO many people say that WAR isn't a grind.  I agree and disagree.  I think they've infused just enough grind to still be able to legitimately call it an MMO.  LOL

Hopefully this post won't derail the entire thread, but....yes, I think EQ (for those of us that are old enough to actually remember it) probably started the "grind" factor, but like another poster stated....it wasn't always that way.

Think of it this way....why do you go to work every day?  Because you need to pay bills and ALSO...to save for things that you WANT, things you desire.  Human beings like to have a sense of "achievement" and to obtain desirable things from the investment of their time and money.   Games, therefore, added this possibility of "obtaining" and the sense of accomplishment from "owning" items, armor, homes, etc., that is achieved by....you guessed it....grinding (read "working") for them.

Just as in real life, if everything came easy, and required no real effort (grind), how "proud" would you really be of the accomplishment?

The trick is to make the "grinding"/"working" in a game...enjoyable...while still having the end result of "possessions," and virtual "accomplishments."

Just my 10 cents.