Dana Massey, the World Designer for the upcoming MMORPG Wish speaks out in our forums about how their game will handle this repetitive and annoying aspect that seems to annoy many players of this great genre:
| We have addressed "the grind" in a number of ways:
1) Advancing your character is not the focus of the game. Unlike most MMOs, the focus of Wish is on story and socialization, and not character advancement. Character advancement is a mechanism that supports you as you play the game and have fun. It is not the focus of the game, or something to be conquered before you can have fun. 2) Our power curve is relatively flat. This means that someone who is skill level 50 is not infinitely better than someone who is skill level 45. In fact, someone who is skill level 25 is roughly half as talented as someone who is 50. This means that while advancing your skills is obviously useful, it is not the be all and end all of the game. By making it less important, we help shift the focus off of it. 3) These changes to the power curve ensure that players can play together from any level and contribute in a meaningful way. We don't want the game to decide (based on your time investment) to decide who you can and cannot play with. We want you to. Will this eliminate the grind and the treadmill? It can if you let it. In the end, players can invent their own treadmill in any system that involves advancement if they so choose. What we have done is remove the necessity of it.
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