MMO Grinding Is Inevitable – But What Do You Prefer?
Gamers are long passed complaining about the grinding nature of today’s MMO games and rather than removing it completely, developers are exploring new avenues to create a bit more variation in the grinding of MMO games. Grinding is basically the action of completing a repetitive task to further oneself in the progression of a particular MMO games. It’s usually considered to be a negative aspect of a game as outside of downing endless Jägerbomb’s, there’s very few things people enjoy doing over and over again.
However, the grind of yesteryear has come and gone; and with it the promise of more exciting grinding comes, which in itself is a bit of an oxymoron. Repeating any task is a little mundane after a while so claiming to make that exciting is quite a bold boast, but some developers are getting close to pulling it off.
If we look back at games like Final Fantasy XI, the grind was simple, frustrating and incredibly dull. You joined a group of players, known as a party, before slaughtering one mob after another. This literally went on for hundreds of hours for those of us that achieved several high-level jobs. Other games, such as Runescape, focused more on providing players with massive grinding choices. Due to its incredibly impressive skills list, Runescape meant players could break up the grind with a grind of a different nature.
Today however things are truly taking a more versatile approach. Titles such as Guild Wars 2, Final Fantasy XIV and Rift are combining the grinding elements from older games to provide players with their own unique choices. Grinding monsters in perfectly viable in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, while grinding FATES and Dynamic Events (from Guild Wars 2) also work well in regards to progressing quickly. All of these games also feature dungeons, instances and questing to help break up days filled with a single activity.
Grinding hasn’t gone from today’s MMO games. In fact it’s quite the opposite, it’s more prevalent than ever. However developers are beginning to innovate the lackluster area of the MMO with new ideas, fresh takes on old ones and creative solutions to a rather stagnant problem.
So if, for a moment, you’re able to forgive the inevitable grind of the MMO game, what are you preferred choices for doing so? Do you enjoy slaying endless waves of the same enemy or do you consider yourself more of a questing player? Or maybe you spend an hour doing dungeons and real-time events, leave a comment below with your thoughts.
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