Tera Online?

[Alaris]

Yes, I agree...but with this corollary: An inordinate amount of grind can lead to a game becoming boring more quickly.

Grind is usually added to give you the illusion that the game is fun.

As for GW2, I can easily see myself getting lost in dynamic events and WvW and stories to the point of not realizing that I gained too many levels already. Especially the trait challenges.

[cursedseishi]

Grind is usually added to give you the illusion that the game is fun.

As for GW2, I can easily see myself getting lost in dynamic events and WvW and stories to the point of not realizing that I gained too many levels already. Especially the trait challenges.

Eh, I would argue that grind is introduced to do either or both of the following:
1) Pad game time. Much like World of Warcraft has done, some required things for serious gameplay is locked behind a reputation. Therazane in Cataclysm, as well as the Nordic-like Frost characters (can't remember the name for the life of me) in Lich King both were the only way one could get shoulder enchants. If you were going to be raiding, this pretty much turned them into a required grind to go through. And since they were character-specific instead of account, if you had multiple characters you raided with you had to take each of them through the whole process individually.
I'd even argue the way some legendary weapons are as a game-padding trick. Shadowmourne, the legendary Rogue daggers, Atiesh and the Ulduar mace are all examples of this. Each of them required a rather large grind just to earn them. Shadowmourne required 25 saronite bars/orbs that could only drop sometimes in 25-man Icecrown, and these items were also required to learn recipes and the like. Buying them all would cost the sum of about 50k depending on the server. Then of course there is the grind to collect shards from the bosses. This is kind of, well, sucky when compared to the old legendaries like Ragnarok's hammer or Thunderfury, who were mainly just earned by getting a few drops off bosses, with the rest available outside of raiding.

It's like saying "Hey we know our content is short as sin, so go grind out these 50% chance quest-specific or universally needed drops off 25-man bosses you can only face once a week, and MAYBE you'll have it in a few months!".

and

2) To encourage players to go the easy route. Generally speaking this is F2P only, which is why XP boosters and the like are so prevalent. They curve the leveling in a way that makes it horrible for all but the most casual of players. It gets worse when you play games with no "questing" mechanics, as you'll then have to contend with killing mobs over and over and over for paltry amounts of experience. This way, the player will be more than happy to pay to increase his experience gain to try and shorten the time it takes to reach the leveling cap.
Of course, then they have to contend with the lottery-based and required-to-do-anything enchanting system, and all the fun of risking losing their equipment if they don't pay real cash for "insurance" on the item.

It's like saying "Hey, we know the leveling experience is like getting a root canal done by a guy with no experience and nothing to put you out, so if you pay us a few bucks, we might tweak your thumbs to help get your mind off a little of that excruciating pain. Also, gauze and pain killers are extra and don't always work, so you might want to pay for our special warranty on that too!"

[Alaris]

@cursedseishi: agreed.

[harniq]

The lack of any real required grind in guild wars allowed me to get a full hall and GWAMM with an average of less than an hour a day for years. Sometimes not playing for months just to come back and pick up where I left. Some grinds took me weeks, while "farming" obsidian took me over a year by simply playing and buying ecto with all gold I got. I might have gotten it faster but I just didn't feel like grinding so much.
The luxon title also took me about a year doing solo MQ runs whenever I felt like playing half an hour. Subsequent content never made my character worse by releasing better gear so it never really mattered I played so slowly.

[Akirai Annuvil]

Yeah I don't have any interest. Definitely sick of "Go kill X" quests. I get even more sick of that the closer GW2 comes to launch. I think it's ridiculous to have stuff like a raccoon race (lol) and I'm not looking to pay a monthly fee, either.

What about it was being praised as refreshing, compared to GW 2?

Go kill X is in GW as well and why would it be so ridiculous to have raccoon races?
More competition is good, great that Tera's coming around.

[Tyris Requiem]

TERA has a number of things against it...

*Korean esque grind
*The payment model
*Lawsuits
*I also heard it didn't do that well when it launched in Korea

Its not looking so great for TERA and Bluehole atm.

[RD]

Go kill X is in GW as well and why would it be so ridiculous to have raccoon races?
More competition is good, great that Tera's coming around.

In GW 1 or 2? I don't think either case is really true, unless you mean Dynamic Events. That I can deal with because it doesn't involve going to a quest giver, running off to some area, killing 20 of something, going back to the quest giver, etc.

I personally just find animal races to be absurd. Charr I can live with because of the way they were positioned starting in GW 1, but when we start getting into stuff like Pandas, Foxes, Raccoons, etc. it becomes a bit much for my taste. I don't care if they're in the game; I just think it's ridiculous.

[cursedseishi]

TERA has a number of things against it...

*Korean esque grind
*The payment model
*Lawsuits
*I also heard it didn't do that well when it launched in Korea

Its not looking so great for TERA and Bluehole atm.

Aye, I have heard the same sentiment around about its perfomance in Korea. The months just after the Korean launch apparently didn't go over to well, as after a few months more than half its servers were merged, going from 35 to 15. This, of course, following a much smaller merge where the servers went from the initial 37 to 35.

They've also more recently implemented a cash shop that sells time-limited and unlimited-time items. While normally that would be fine with me, buying these cosmetic items then give you a type of currency that can affect the game ranging from just death-penalty protection to special items that are apparently both expensive as sin and important to crafting.

[shawn]

Tera.. full of stolen code and pedos playing the Elin race. No thanks.

Not that I agree with the demonization of pedos (it's not like they can help who they're attracted to any more than anyone can help being ***), but I'd rather not play a game where there's a race that looks like a 10 year old girl with cat ears and barely anything else on.

[RD]

http://my.mmosite.com/1cd10251c16a43...6fccf123e.html

lol...

They had to censor the pedo race.