Lets make a definition of "Grind" within Guild Wars!

Anything I find boring or irritating. You can't really pin it down, though. Just try and judge from the individual complaints what a poster is upset about and don't get obsessed with defining things. That only leads to futile arguments about whether someone has a right to be annoyed, based on a false notion of what they're talking about.

That said, for me, grind in GW is anything title connected.

I think the irritation I tend to feel stems from having to go through a great deal of graft, outside of my current goal. Especially when that graft seems to have no logical connection to the goal. I never had any issue with not being able to afford prestige armour, for instance. But being refused service? Give me a break.

It's not just about having to collect points, either - it works the other way too. Believe it or not, for all my title griping, I've actually been pursuing one lately. Nothing hardcore, just collecting points for Sunspear, whilst pursuing primary quests on a new Ranger. I managed to hit Castellan, on the journey to the Bone Palace. Guess what's irritating me now? No more points until hardmode! I wouldn't even know that, without wiki - I'd still be clicking on priests, only to be given some vague nonsense about where my legend will be written. What's the point in the interruption? It seems like whether I choose to pursue titles or not, they still all end up making me feel like I've hit another pointless roadblock, because a designer had a far too stringent idea on what order goals should be achieved.

It's as if Grind is the name of some hungry boa lurking in the background, looking for any sign that my journey is feeling rewarding, at which point it slithers in to crush the fun out of me...

So I guess the things that make me "feel" grind are lack of freedom, too much structure, pointless roadblocks, etc.

I'd still say "grind" is simply the repetitive act with a given goal in mind, so therefore, most games have some form of it. Strictly speaking, Tetris doesnt have grind and neither does a FPS, if you are simply playing for fun. Killing monsters in GW just for the sake of it isnt grind either, but is when you attach a goal to it.

If you enjoy it, the game is designed well. If you do not, there is potentially some shortcoming in the game design or you simply tire of it. In both cases, some form of grind is there. If the reward isnt great enough or the means through which one pursues said goal isnt dynamic enough, it can become a negative experience.

Grind is completely and entirely subjective.

I have never once experienced grind in Guild Wars, and I've played ~3000 hours.

Grind is a sort of psychological disconnect in some gamers (generally victims of the "stuff is more important than gameplay" MMO mentality) that appears to only turn up in online games. It's the notion that a given portion of a game that is not fun for them must be played anyway, and often repeatedly, and that someone is forcing them to do so. There are two kinds of game where you see this: games where players don't enjoy something central to the game but play it anyway, and those where players don't enjoy something optional to the game but can't bear not to have the "rewards" of playing that component. GW's "grind" is almost entirely of the latter variety. With the restructured rep rewards in GWEN (and the books) the last bastion, to my thinking, of legitimate complaint is the kurzick/luxon titles. My solution, though, is simply to ignore them.

It's a game. If something in it's not fun, don't do it. If something central to the game's not fun (which has never been the case for me in GW), play another game. Simple.

Yes, designers can create feelings of grind by placing what feels like arbitrary roadblocks in a game to make the game last longer.

This is especially jarring when such roadblocks weren't in place earlier...

My example of senseless Factions "grind": Having to go through inane missions and quests in Keinang City to get to the Luxon and Kurzick areas. The constant backtracking, and just when you think you are done.... you have to go back!

I guess that's not really grind, just bad design, but what made it worst was that in Prophecy you could run almost anywhere in the game. Why did Anet change it? Beats me.

/Agree

You are the thread winner.

Some players wanted it so noobs couldnt get to higher areas.

I haave to admit to being one of those who wanted it. I hate seeing lvl10s running around high end content because you know they want to join you just so they can get to the end at a low level.

While I accept it should be a choice, it impacts high end players who want teams and get low level players asking to join who just cant be of any use.

We do need some restrictions ingame.

For the most part you are correct, but it has never been limited to online games. The difference is that most consol games do not generate such a massive online forum as GWG.

Think back to Final Fantasy 7, ever grind up a master summon materia? or master comand?

^ Beat me to it. Not a whole lot to say about this, really. You just can't define grind, just like beauty.

This is incorrect. Maxing a book or both books won't get you anywhere remotely near maxing the 4 EOTN titles that the book applies to. You'd have to repeat those books numerous times at great time and grind expense to max those titles. Rep requires massive grind with books or without books.

Grind in GW is basically anything other than the storyline. Any task you have to repeat for tens/hundreds/thousands of hours just to max a title or make progress. Pretty much anything in the game other than the storyline and the Protector titles is 100% mindless repetition, and therefore nothing but grind.

Some people exclude grind titles like Legendary Skill Hunter even though you are just killing the same exact mobs in the exact same zones multiple times to cap each skill one at a time. But let's call a spade a spade. That is definitely grind, as is the vast majority of GW gameplay and other grind-based titles that somehow are not always perceived as grind even though they should be because they are. Including PVP which also requires nothing but grind to get emotes/titles or anything good.

Cartography is also a grind, just a hardcore pixel-hunting grind.

Saying GW has no grind has always been an illusion. Without grind there is almost nothing to do in GW beyond the storyline.

Well some of us find the game more challenging being in high end areas at a lower level, I ran myself to the desert at something like lvl 5, died loads of times but who cares, it's a challenge and I found it quite constructive regarding tactics and builds, did the 1st 15pt attribute quest at 8 and only died once getting past the hydras (got a screenie somewhere) and Ascended at 11, so don't say low level chars arent any use, especially when for all you know, it's a "high end" player pushing the buttons looking for something a bit more challenging than taking an extra 5-15 seconds to kill something in Hard Mode

I hate to bring this off topic, but here's the bottom line:

You can still run in Prophecy.

You can't run in Factions.

If anything, it makes more sense to allow running in Factions b/c of high-level characters already and the ease of new characters to level to 20.

But, Anet didn't allow running in Factions NOT b/c of some beef with runners (or else, the running paths in Prophecies would have been shut down years ago).

Nope, the only reason there are arbitrary gates in Factions is to make a short game APPEAR longer. And the more I think about it, the more that sounds like Grind: Extending repetitive parts of a game by excluding access to later parts.

Note, we're not talking about anything cosmetic like armor or weapons. We're talking about access to the coolest parts of Factions, the very parts Factions was named after! That would make sense if I was paying a monthly fee to waste time in Keineng City. But, I'm not, so why waste my time? Why the Grind?

- It greatly depends how it's presented. Explicitly stating "Go out there and kill 3,000 blobs and reach level 10 before proceeding" is the worst kind. I remember when I played some Final Fantasies on Super Nintendo as a kid. Leveling up was subtle and it always felt good when I received a message that now my characters were a notch better. I've also seen games that have no point besides to grind and this shows that the developers have completely misunderstood the element of grind. One such game is presented on Something Awful. Early Prophecies was the good kind of "grind". Do some extra quests to gain level and you will have easier time on next missions. Faction allegiance titles are just mindless. Get one million and receive some +2 seconds to your Elemental Lord spell which is worse than Glyph of Elemental Power. Time spend definitely does not equal rising power level, unlike some idiots here seem to imply.



- Agreed 100%.

something you have to work towards continuely! simple as...something you work constantly for until you achieve max lvl!

I'll agree with that, and might just be the reason why most other MMO's have much higher Levels for people to reach, as although it might be grindy, you do feel like your getting somewhere rather than grinding some soppy title which lets face it is just for bragging rights seeing as the difference between min and max tier of a track relating to skills is virtually sod all.

Again, I don't think it can be that broad.

I don't think anyone considers getting to level 20 in Guild Wars as Grind. It's hard NOT to get to level 20. (unless you're doing it in pre-searing, but that's by choice, not force). And there are many ways to get to level 20: killing monsters, variety of quests/missions, even capping elites. So, no, not grind, unless we make the definition of grind so broad it has no meaning.

Getting to 20's not Grindy in anyway whatsoever and if anyone thinks it is, then you're playing the wrong game.

Grind is any repetitive task that you don't like doing. I enjoy everything I've done in Guild Wars, and don't consider any of my 2k hours as grind. However, if someone made me do the boring-ass cartographer titles, I'd consider it grind.

I never play JRPG's (just not a fan of the style), but I take your point. With most SP games I play I never set foot on a forum, so I wouldn't know.