Are we all just here to grind?
by Amanda Rivera 
Jun 3rd 2007 at 1:02PM
I don't often look to the Hollywood Reporter for, well, anything. So when I read an article talking about MMOs, I was a little skeptical. But as it turns out they have some interesting things to say about WoW and the MMO market.
Most of the article is a large advertisement for Mesa Studios' latest endeavor, Stargate Worlds, but being that WoW is the top dog in MMOs today, they spend a lot of time talking about what makes WoW successful. They say that the grinding element is, in part, one of the reasons that players keep playing World of Warcraft. Now, Mr. Ybarra, the gentleman from Stargate Worlds sounds as if he doesn't have much experience with WoW as an actual game when he says this:
The paradigm for customer retention at 'WoW' and most of the other MMOGs is to build a game that takes the player 2,000 hours to reach Level 500...
I would have to partly disagree with this statement. I honestly don't think that grinding is the reason we all stay with WoW as opposed to moving onto another game. And just as a side note, can you imagine what the armor sets will be if the level cap is ever pushed to 500? They would be totally insane!
Anyway, as I was saying, I think the innovation in the game design and the constant new content is what keeps people playing WoW. The depth of story and sense of humor have much more appeal to me than my need to push through to level *ahem* 500. Perhaps it's this kind of mistaken logic that keeps the other games from being able to dethrone WoW as a leading contender. I am continually amazed at the variety of gameplay in WoW, not only is their straight questing and the infinite story lines to follow, there are the instances, each beautiful in their uniqueness. Add to that the battlegrounds and the arenas and the World PvP. There's a lot more to do than just grind in WoW.
But this is just one girl's opinion. Do you think grinding is the reason we all continue to play WoW? Is it our love of repetition that compels us to stay?
[via gamebunny]
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Leveling
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ErsatzPotato Jun 3rd 2007 1:37PM
"the infinite story lines to follow, there are the instances, each beautiful in their uniqueness"
Yipes. They could double your subscription price, couldn't they?
Did it occur to you that he was exaggerating to make a point? He's not entirely wrong.
Deathlike Jun 3rd 2007 1:43PM
Yeah, the level 500 comment was just a hyperbole. As far as World of Warcraft goes, it's not the new content or the "innovation" (I still have yet to see any features that Blizzard came up with, everything's taken from other MMO's) that keeps people coming back, it's success.
The way World of Warcraft is made, and I'd bet it's more luck than design, causes the player to feel like something is accomplished almost every time a player is logged on. A second part to that is the socializing of the game; WoW's population is basically (ironically) one of the causes of it's population - people join and stay because other people have.
The above is my opinion, and even though I said things as fact, I didn't mean to. Just too lazy to go up and change things now. ;p
Lethon Jun 3rd 2007 2:09PM
What isn't a grind in WoW? Quest grinding to gain xp or rep, raid grinding to keep up with the Jones', instance grinding to gain a few items to more successfully grind xp/raids, bg honor grinding. Even the social aspect to WoW is a grind: how many have you /ignored or grown to hate on your way to finding those few you enjoy the presence of? The man is right. WoW is nothing but a "carrot on a stick" constanty teasing you with the concept of a end without ever showing you the gameover screen.
Lori Jun 3rd 2007 2:15PM
I think he was including questing in his definition of grinding in addition to grinding rep and farming mats. And many WoW quests are a grind (meaning doing the same activity over and over) of the type: kill 20 Orcs and collect 20 Whatever, etc. The same can be said for instances when we need to rerun the same ones over and over for gear drops or items to buy gear with.
rick gregory Jun 3rd 2007 2:44PM
What comments like that miss is that if success and progression were linear, narrow and repetitive, the game would have failed. Deathlike gets 2 of the things - the fact that you can accomplish something every time you log in and the social aspect.
Also it's easy to start... remember your first 10 levels? They're fast, so you start out with positive reinforcement versus frustration.
And I do think Amanda has a key point right - there's variety. Bored of questing and levelling? PvP! Or run an instance! Work on an alt... you can have several. At 70? Arena! Or raids.... Maybe you want better gear but can't raid? Skill up a craft. Or grind rep for a reward you want. Heck, play the AH...
All of those are options in WoW and it allows a wide variety of players to keep coming back to the game from people with 8 hours a day to play to people with an hour every once in a while.
Rich Jun 3rd 2007 2:40PM
You also have to admit that part of the way Blizzard keeps players playing is with the grind. Everything in the game revolves around it. Crafting, rep rewards, gear drops, etc. Farm for mats, grind out rep, run the same instances over and over for gear drops.
Blizzard has done a good job of wetting people's appetites with items attached to a grind somehow. Whether it is tier armor, new mounts, awesome new gear, or some cool trinket. They set it up so people get a new goal "I need a netherdrake". Then when most of the people meet that goal, a new grind appears.
I've gotten really ambivalent about grind games, especially WoW. I started off on MxO, then moved to SWG (post CU1) then moved to WoW. I am looking forward to new games that lessen the grind but don't kill the feel of the game in the process.
Andy Jun 3rd 2007 2:58PM
If there's anything Blizzard understands it's the relationship between randomly generated rewards and addiction. That mystery combined with the ability to control your progression with simple tasks that only require time, not skill, allow for the very true notion that shiny things and respect is only within time's reach.
Tornik Jun 3rd 2007 5:15PM
I would love to see examples of the "innovation in the game design" the author is talking about here.
Don't get me wrong, I love WoW with a passion, but doesn't it really just boil down to killing things, making things and collecting and selling things?
WoW does all of these things very well, arguably better than any other online game out there just now, but is that really 'innovation'? I think not.
Arturis Jun 3rd 2007 9:07PM
The innovation examples you are looking for, Tornik, are everywhere in the game if you just take the time to notice them. From the Rest State concept (an MMO First! Reward players for signing off the game!) to entering a "ghost world" upon death to run back to your corpse (again, never done prior to WoW), World of Warcraft is undoubtedly the most innovated MMO out there.
But I tell you what, lets set the feature list aside a moment, and I will take this opportunity to highlight just one of aspect of constant renewal and innovation in the game: Unique Instances. From Deadmines and Ragefire up to Hyjal and Black Temple, they have gone out of their way to make sure that each Instance has a unique look and feel. When you reach a new boss, you are presented with a brand new challenge of figuring out how to defeat it. They could have just made each instance a generic cave with generic monsters leading up to generic boss fights, or worse yet, made every dungeon a randomly generated mash of dungeon parts (Lost Dungeons of Norrath?). But they don't - every time they have to sit down and design a new dungeon, they put the player experience (not the in-game statistic kind) first and do their best to not simply rehash the same dungeon romp over and over again. That, my friend, is innovation - It is not all about what new feature you can tack on, its about doing old things in a new and fresh way.
Ambril Jun 3rd 2007 9:56PM
"The paradigm for customer retention at 'WoW' and most of the other MMOGs is to build a game that takes the player 2,000 hours to reach Level 500..."
That statement alone points towards that developers recipe for failure.
YPEELS40 Jun 4th 2007 12:16AM
Doesnt it take up to 500 hours to reach level 70. Which is proportional for 2,000 hours to reach level 500.
Some people play to be with friends in real life or in game.
Others play as a hobby /addiction.
Good replay value cause of grinding?
I'd say more because of the overall package =)
ErsatzPotato Jun 4th 2007 1:27AM
[beep beep] warning: rant incoming [beep beep]
Oddly, Arturis ends with the important part, "It is not all about what new feature you can tack on, its about doing old things in a new and fresh way" and leads with complete and utter nonsense: "World of Warcraft is undoubtedly the most innovated MMO out there."
WoW is huge because of the high quality of the shiny bits: exceptional production values and polishing (and simplification) of gameplay. Those are refinements and their importance can not be overstated. Only Nintendo does them as well as Blizzard.
For innovation (I think most mean inventiveness when discussing WoW, if not, innovation can be swapped in for refinement above at no great cost) WoW is beaten by any number of other MMORPGs.
You want to see stuff never done before? Try A Tale in the Desert. You get the dev's home cellphone number. Players can *make the game end*. Marriage is an important quest in the Religion faction (closest equivalents) but there is no divorce and that player can now log in as you. If he/she does and screws you over the dev will not fix it. Mentoring new players is an entire sub-game, with benefits.
Or EVE Online. Tens of thousands of players all on one server. Sharing one AH. Market manipulation by player run cartels very much allowed.
Or Puzzle Pirates where a couple dozen people play Tetris at once in two groups (I am not making this up, and it's pretty darn cool in execution) to pvp and steal the other side's gear. As superdeformed anime pirates.
WoW is one of the best games ever. It is a Hall of Fame game. It is also a highly refined mishmash of cliches, way too much orange and purple cheek by jowl, and every piece of gear a combination of Power Ranger & GWAR. It spins! it shines! it has foam shoulders the size of an Antarctic alien penis monster on Dynasty!
(They really need to add Joan Collins as an elite mob.)
ErsatzPotato Jun 4th 2007 1:32AM
"Sharing one AH."
Ignore the quoted bit of text. No idea what I was thinking of other than the dramatic. Hey, I was ranting! There are 500 levels!
Arturis Jun 4th 2007 2:15AM
@Ersatz of the Potato People
I could be reading your rant wrong, but it's almost like you are saying that a game can not be innovative and still adhere to the sword and sorcery fantasy MMO genre. To be honest, I'm glad Blizzard didn't try to create WoW by the definition of innovation you are putting forth - Then we would all most likely have to fill out anagram puzzles to do attack combos or some other such novelty. And that last part of your rant was more an attack on Blizzard's choice of artistic style then anything having to do with innovation. Which, as long as we are on the topic, is *another* area of innovation - before WoW, the majority of MMOs out there were striving to look similar to the once MMO king, EverQuest. The Blizzard team opted to go for a more cartoony style to better keep in line with the established Warcraft games and to express a greater amount of personality using a fraction of the poly count as its direct competitor, EverQuest2, and it received a severe amount of flack because of it from the media and gamer community. We all know who won out on that little horse race. I, to this day, regret spending my money on the EQ2 Collector's Edition tin box, as it meant not having the money for the WoW CE. Every time a see a Panda, Zergling or mini-Diablo in game, I cry a little inside.
Savok Jun 4th 2007 5:39AM
I've been seriously considering quitting recently, but my mind keeps coming back to the question of "what else is there?".
Many MMOGs are SOE, instant write-off. Warhammer was interesting until EA bought it, another write-off now. EVE, while fantastic, couldn't be anymore different to WoW.
City of Heroes/Villains was great fun, but the world's most inflexible game engine screech as the devs try to implement everything they've learnt is painful to watch.
LOTR Online made it so my computer wouldn't turn on after I installed it, I'd like to avoid that happening again.
Age of Conan and Tabula Rasa both look very interesting, but neither are even close to being done.
With possible exception to a functioning LOTR, there is stuff all.
ErsatzPotato Jun 4th 2007 9:13AM
Savok, you might want to try the Guild Wars games. Very clever stuff. Not MMORPGs, exactly, but no monthly fees either.
To Arturis:
""I could be reading your rant wrong, but it's almost like you are saying that a game can not be innovative and still adhere to the sword and sorcery fantasy MMO genre."
Not impossible. S&S games do come pre-saddled with cliched expectations (D&D, Tolkien, the usual suspects) which have to be met in some way, which can stifle a bit. It's also an immediate hook--almost everything else tried has died in the marketplace.
Agree entirely with your very funny point about doing anagrams to attack. The three games I used as
examples actively broke new ground (rest time first appeared in Tale in the Desert, btw) AND are good games. Certainly not for everyone though.
"And that last part of your rant was more an attack on Blizzard's choice of artistic style then anything having to do with innovation."
Yup. Thus the labeling of the post as a rant. Going with lower technical quality but distinctive visuals was the single best choice Blizzard made. Lower barrier to entry and more memorable. Awfully sick of Orange + Mauve but that's just me.
ben1778 Jun 4th 2007 10:28AM
I also wanted to point out that BLizz keeps people playing not by getting a better balance between classes/spells and such but by continually CHANGING the balance of things. THey enver achieve perfect balance, but that's not their goal. THe goal is to keep things changing so people have something new to chew on.
People often say that warlocks are overpowered now. They might be. To me it feels like compensation for the first months of WoW when Warlocks were a complete joke among the other classes.
Change + variety = continued subscriptions
Juliah Jun 4th 2007 12:01PM
For what it's worth, I play to explore. I love discovering new areas and interacting with the NPCs there to get snippets of their culture. I enjoy learning about the lore of the game as a participant. That interests me much more than the grind.
annoula Jun 4th 2007 12:55PM
I've got a friend who plays that went out of his way to read every book in the game he encountered, every quest and speak with every NPC possible.
When we ran SM library I nearly killed him (stop reading and heal damnit!!).