Does A Guild Wars 2 Grind Exist?

Written by: Jason Winter (Twitter @winterinformal - Google+) | January 16, 2013 10:31 am

53 Comments

In the beginning…

While everyone’s ogling the new and shiny Guild Wars 2 developer video, this one from Colin Johanson, I’d like to go back to an earlier one – the early one, in fact.

Back when the earth was new and none of us had ever heard the phrases “fiscal cliff” or “Gangnam style,” there was the Guild Wars 2 Manifesto. While you could argue as to whether ArenaNet fulfilled all its lofty promises, there’s only one I’d like to address today: grind.

Here’s what Colin Johanson had to say in the Manifesto video:

In most games, you go out and you have really fun tasks occasionally that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. “I swung a sword, I swung a sword again… hey, I swung it again! That’s great!” We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that, no one finds it fun. We want to change the way people view combat.

Colin seems to be taking a smaller approach to grind than what most people – or maybe just I – think. He’s referring to “grind” as boring combat, whereas I think “grind” to most MMORPG players means “endgame grind,” namely having to repeat the same content over and over to get the best stuff in the game.

The blog post attached to the Manifesto video seems to echo my sentiments, saying:

It [Guild Wars 2] doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill

Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward.

So, that comes to the big question: Is there a Guild Wars 2 grind? Has this part of the Manifesto, at least, been validated? For the most part, I’d say “yes.”

No grind allowed

To get you an idea of where I’m at: I’ve got two level 80 characters and three alts. I’ve run about 10 to 15 each fractal sets and explorable mode dungeons. I’ve got one crafting profession at 400 and two more in the 300s. I’ve fought the Claw of Jormag twice, never seen Tequatl or the Shatterer. I’ve done all the Orr temple events once except Grenth and two times on Melandru. I’ve done some sPvP and WvW, but usually don’t dip into either more than a couple times a week.

Based on that resumé, I don’t think you’d say I’ve “grinded” anything. I’ve sampled a little bit of everything and there’s still a fair amount left to do, including several dungeons and one whole zone (Blazeridge Steppes) I’ve only spent about five minutes in.

And I have the best gear, stat-wise, in the game. Well, sort of.

You see, I could have the best gear on one of my 80s, and probably on the other. Between my crafting, gold – about 35 across all my characters, which isn’t much to hear some of the people in my guild talk, though I could get more by clearing out my bank – and karma, I could easily have a full set of exotic armor, exotic weapons, and superior runes and sigils that fit my build and playstyle.

So why don’t I? Because I’m saving up for that damned legendary weapon.

“Aha! There’s the grind!” you say. Yes, without a doubt, getting a legendary weapon is a grind on a massive scale. I crunched the numbers the other day and found that, if I bought everything I needed for my legendary – not counting what I already have or account-bound items – it would run me about 1,170 gold, including 500 for my precursor weapon alone.

But legendary weapons are nothing more than extremely fancy cosmetic upgrades. They’re the ultimate in bragging rights and uber-cool, but, stat-wise, they’re the same as an exotic I could get for a few gold on the trading post, from a few more dungeon runs, from crafting, from the Mystic Forge, etc.

So my decision to (mostly) hoard my gold, my globs of ectoplasm, my T6 crafting mats, and so on is slightly hampering my overall ability at the moment – though rares aren’t too far a step down from exotics in most cases – but it’s something I could remedy almost instantly if I chose to give up my legendary chase.

And I think having a full set of all the best gear in the game, without needing to repeat specific content or do certain things over and over and over more than satisfies the promise of there being no gear grind in Guild Wars 2…

Grinds my gears

…except for ascended gear. Yeah, that still sticks in my craw at the moment, but I’m kinda-sorta OK with it because the stat differences are very minor and it’s currently limited to just one slot. And ArenaNet clearly saw the response to their introduction and will be extremely careful in expanding ascended gear in the future.

In truth, I like my legendary “grind,” at least for the moment. (Ask me again in six months.) If not for that, I would have all the best stuff and might be wondering a little bit about where to go next.

But because I have the long-term goal of a legendary to strive for, I feel like there’s still something for me to accomplish, something beyond just having the best stat gear in the game.

Others might disagree with ArenaNet’s implementation, insisting that the best stat gear should be something that should at least require some kind of very difficult, semi-unique task, such as defeating a raid boss in a large group. In other words, it should require great skill, not just the accumulation of resources – in GW2‘s case, gold, karma, crafting mats, or even tokens from relatively easy dungeons or fractals.

I can see where that side comes from, but that isn’t ArenaNet’s style. If you did require “the big raid” or whatever to get the best gear, would it make sense to only have to do it once? Of course not. You’d have to do it again and again to get a full set of armor, weapons, accessories, etc. – and that would be grind.

No matter how grandiose your expectations, every MMO has to include some kind of reason to “grind” – or, by definition, a reason to make you come back to it beyond just, “Well, it’s fun.” I like fun in my games, too, but even I would rather do something that’s fun and gets me something I can use in the game than just doing something for kicks. And I think I’m on the low end of the “Best Gear or Nothing” side of the player base.

Ascended gear notwithstanding, I like that Guild Wars 2 limits its grind to a cosmetic. Looking up at what still lays before me, I feel it could maybe be a touch easier to acquire, but maybe it’s better this way. It means that people who are just interested in stats can get a full set of “stat gear” with relatively little effort but that there’s something else super-fancy to strive for.

That part of the Manifesto, at least in my mind, has been true to ArenaNet’s vision and promises.

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http://www.facebook.com/oneniisama Bear Powell

GW2 at the start felt like zero grind imo. I went out and explored areas and leveled via my own pace doing hearts, events, personal quests, crafting, etc… Once I got to max level the game started the hidden grind. 100% exploration, exotic gear (now ascended), crafting mats, gold, etc… It’s all one long grind atm interrupted by RNG. The game we have at Lvl 80 is not the game that was sold to us in the manifesto.
- Torguish
  
  I couldn’t have said it better..
- http://twitter.com/Giru017 Marcel Frohlich
  
  By your definition then, any form of gameplay is grind. And the thing is, none of that is really needed unless you start to go for a Legendary. There’ PVP. There’s WubvWub. There’s playing the market. I don’t exactly understand what it is you people really want/expected.
  
  Between holiday events and lost shores (which had it’s flaws, no doubt), there have even been “outside the norm” things to do, just in case the normal content gets too boring. If earning a title or crafting a set of gear or running dungeons (different paths) or exploring are all considered grind to you, I would really doubt there’s any game that could really please you.
  - dawolv
    
    I wouldn’t say any…
    A compact 8h experience maybe..
    I think it’s called .. Single Player… but I might be mistaken.
  - Chris Martin
    
    Like I keep explaining to them, I think they need to play a single player RPG not a MMO. Then they have no grind to worry (however minor), because no stats matter to them outside their circle of friends. If they have any!
    The whole grind debate boils down to kindergarten arm waving of the mentality “Boohoo, George got the big red truck and I only got the little pink bike! Bwaaaa!”
- Chris Martin
  
  I often wonder why people like you play MMO’s and not single player RPG’s? I have yet to find a sufficient answer about the whole “oh God its got grind” debate. Let’s do a mental exercise here for a minute and take away the xp bar in GW, remove all gear tiers and stats from display. Now you just wear things that look different, You totally can’t tell if any other gear is better or worse than what you have on. Now lets keep the other things, crafting: to make new looking gear (no stats), the map: to explore fully, gold: to repair broken stuff, to tp to wp, buy nice new looking things like gear and weapons… Do we still have grind? From your comments – yes! Map exploration, the gold, crafting… I don’t get it! So, what should Arenanet do to totally remove grind from a mmo? Keg brawl all day? No thanks!
- CannibalShinobi
  
  That’s a complete lie. If you are relying on any RNG for gear then you are doing it to yourself. Crafting, buying, dungeons, karma, etc, there are a ton of non-RNG ways to get a full exotic set of gear. You are choosing to grind, the game isn’t forcing you.
- http://twitter.com/winterinformal Jason Winter
  
  Why are you doing 100% exploration? Or gathering lots of crafting mats or gold? Sounds like you’re saving for a legendary cosmetic.
http://www.facebook.com/lee.joel1 Lee Joel

Anyone who plays an MMO and expects zero grind is delusional. Grinding is acceptable, to much is unbearable. Personally I like WoWs way of doing gear. Yes there is a treadmill, but its very easy to get gear if you apply yourself. But since so many people would cry a river over a treadmill thats not a real option for GW2. I think the way they are doing acended gear is fine since exotic was just ridiculously easy to obtain.
http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.hornsby.7 Jonathan Hornsby

What I am about to say is going to get a lot of hateful responses I am sure, but as far as I can tell it is the truth. The kind of hard, ugly, unsatisfying truth that people refuse to even acknowledge, let alone discuss. Here it is; the grind in Guild Wars 2 is our fault.

It is simple common sense to know that no developer can create infinite content, and what content they can produce takes time. This means that in order to reduce those long lulls where players have nothing to do and the game grows stagnant every patch or even is designed from the earliest development stages to have what I call a “content lifespan.” Put simply that is how long the content from a given update is supposed to last the average player. For example; the January update is ideally going to be enough content to tide over the bulk of the community until the February update.

But there is a problem. And that problem is us; the community. You see a certain, large, portion of the community has this mindset of “give me all the shinnies right now!” And this unspoken obsession leads to four things; farming, speed running, min/maxing, and grinding. In short the community acts like addicts desperate for a fix, and does everything it can to consume as much content as it can as rapidly as possible, intended content lifespan be damned. Most often this is also followed by the community hypocritically complaining about a lack of content, most often in the form of “end game.” And yes; the game will seem to lack content or endgame when you obsessively grind through six months’ worth of content in a week. But that is your fault, not Arena Net’s.

This results in a fight between the developers and the community over just how long content should take. The community constantly tries to find ways to consume content faster and faster, as evidenced by all the legendary guides on youtube, while the developers constantly try to adjust the game to preserve their content’s lifespans, giving them time to create and test new content properly instead of rushing through to give the addicts a quick fix and keep them happy. The ways this is done is through long respawn
timers, dungeon locks, and grind. In short the more we, the community, grind and farm, the more grindy the game will become and the more mats will be needed to craft. We’ve seen it already with dungeons. People were farming dungeons, and so Arena Net created a penalty to the reward tokens you obtain that way. In short the more obsessively you consume content, the more you will have to do so in order to progress. You’re slowing yourself down, not speeding yourself up.

If the community truly wants a low grind game then we’re going to have to bite the bullet and actually stop grinding. Because if we don’t; if we continue to ravenously consume content this way Arena Net will have no choice but to give us the only kind of content that can survive our wrath for any notable period of time; grind. There is that old saying that actions speak louder than words, and while are words on forums and the like may say we don’t want grind, our actions demand more of it. It is our fault. We created the need
for this grind.
- dawolv
  
  You nailed it! Pretty much what I’ve been saying pre-beta when a bunch of people were complaining about a lack of endgame.
  On my first Character (Charr Guardian) in the live game I took all the time I needed and explored the crap out of the world. I was Level 80 before I ever entered the Bloodtide Coast.
  My second and third character I brought to 80 a little more efficiently (partly because my Guardian was a cook and I had constantly +20% xp on my alts) but still I seized all the game had to offer.
  
  I’m currently Lvl 9 in Fractals.
  My guildmates are doing 30-ish – but I just don’t have the time! I can play about 2h a day, but those 2 hours are chopped up in multiple 20min sessions.
  
  I’m glad they put a game together that is so anti-grind (at least for the stuff I care about: Stat-equality) Because that (as well as the combat system and the Sub Fee) was my reason not to play any other MMO – ever. With GW2 I can have the MMO without the MMO Stigma.
  And those who don’t like it, frankly, I will not miss.
- Demi_God
  
  Overall, it is a good post. There is one statement that I do take issue with, “But that is your fault, not Arena Net’s.”
  
  What I take issue with is that players are customers. And what you advertise as your product should be what you are selling.
  
  2 examples
  
  “Guild Wars 2 is YOUR story. Your choices determine how your
  personal story evolves; with thousands of possible variations, no two
  players will have the exact same experience.”
  
  “Competitive play in Guild Wars 2 is easy to learn, but offers
  challenges for new players and hardcore PvPers alike. In Player vs.
  Player matches, small teams of players battle over maps packed with
  objectives, while in World vs. World, armies of hundreds of players from
  competing servers wage war across four sprawling maps.”
  
  Both of these statements are currently on the official GW2 website. The first one is definitely misleading. Story is mediocre at best in GW2 and I don’t see THOUSANDS of variations. The claim PVP is easy to learn, is an outright lie. And that is ArenaNet’s fault, not the fault of any player buying the game based on those selling points.
  
  To different degrees this applies to everything, and I would suggest ArenaNet labeling GW2 as the ‘non-grind game’ is well within the boundaries for criticism by their customers.
  - http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.hornsby.7 Jonathan Hornsby
    
    People grinding through content faster than intended and then complaining about the perceived lack of content has nothing to do with marketing. Arena Net never went on record and said “you will still have lots to do for months after release if you spend the first month grinding/farming/speed running your ass off.” That is what I was referring too. The perceived lack of endgame is the community’s fault simply because the community made the choice to grind through all of the game’s release content in a few weeks, disregarding the time it would take Arena Net to produce more.
    - Demi_God
      
      Because everyone takes the scenic route when they drive halfway across the country to a theme park, and no one takes the interstate.
      
      That way, if they get to the theme park and discover that they hate all the rides they have all the wonderful memories of the journey there.
      
      Horse Shite
      - http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.hornsby.7 Jonathan Hornsby
        
        My point stands; if you rush through content faster than was intended you ultimately have no one but yourself to blame when you run out of things to do. And the counter to your snide remark actually was covered by the marketing; it was said repeatedly that you’ll be doing the exact same things at max level as you were doing throughout your leveling progress. So again; you made the choice –needlessly by your logic- to rush through the game. Your argument about needing to rush in case you don’t enjoy endgame is the “horse shite.”
      - http://www.facebook.com/people/Vanessa-Wilson/755259388 Vanessa Wilson
        
        But you see… here’s the thing. If your mindset is that the “Theme Park” doesn’t start till you hit 80, you’re already on the wrong path. Arena net’s idea is that.. from the very beginning, you’re already stepping on the path in the park itself. Everything that happens from there is already part of the experience. Not just aiming to get something once you hit a certain level.
        
        A great example of this is the shadow behemoth in the godsworn swamp in Queensdale. (though i find noone ever seems to trigger it anymore. )
        
        People take a journey to get to their theme park because people are stuck in teh mindset of needing to “plvl – ‘the drive to the park’ and the theme park only being end game. You just have to step back and drop your preconceived ideas you bring from other games. This game should be given the fairness of being graded on its own virtues.
      - Demi_God
        
        I like the part where you don’t call me an asshole for not being particularly fond of GW2, thanks.
        
        There is certainly something to the argument that many gamer’s perceptive max level as the actual game, and aren’t interested in running around exploring the map. My point was/is so what? You are just going to have players that want to get leveling out of the way, and that is just their style. And the overall response from the GW2 fanboys (I hate to use the term) is, “you are playing the game wrong”.
        
        My point on the matter, is the players who use the freeway to level 80, are also customers. They have every right, regardless of the reason, to play a different game if they are not having fun in GW2. ArenaNet has the right as a publisher of trying to fix their complaint or not.
        
        For myself I can speak with certainty that it isn’t the non-linear style of the game that caused me to stop playing. All I have played since GW2 are non-linear games. Currently racking up many many hours in the Firefall Beta.
  - Chris Martin
    
    This is just basic marketing 101. Features and benefits with a tiny pinch of bullshit.
    “Our product kills 99.9% of germs dead!” or “our xyzPhone is revolutionary and magical!” or “Buy now pay nothing until January 2015,(small print: Terms and conditions apply, blood samples and DNA will
    be taken upon purchase and if you don’t pay up we will find and kill your family…)” or while out eating have you ever seen a cheese burger on a poster, all juicy and colourful, and then compare it to the flat sweaty mess that arrives on your plate? If we bitched and moaned about everything we buy “as customers”, there would be no economy. It just depends upon if you feel strongly about whether to moan about these things or not
  - dawolv
    
    ”Guild Wars 2 is YOUR story. Your choices determine how your
    personal story evolves; with thousands of possible variations, no two
    players will have the exact same experience.”
    
    Definately!
    The Story is actually not that bad up to the point at the battle at Claw Island.
    The mega dumb death of the sidekick character is just the start. After that it’s all one giant story w/o much variation. And I think they rushed it! It doesn’t feel quite done.
    The story around your Race is awesome though. Only thing that would make it all better now is if, instead of these stupid cutscenes, they’d just deploy the dialog with speech bubbles in the live game (and maybe fix the camera for that).
- Chris Martin
  
  I think “grind” comes more from people coming to GW2 that have been primed with that mentality from games like Rift and WoW. Between those two games (and others), I’m sure most would agree that the whole grind mentality comes from time spent obtaining the highest gear sets to stay competitive and keep up with friends. On top of that, there is the reality that players from above games are paying a monthly sub, so the thought of not grinding, and instead, standing around with their thumb up their arse, not doing much, is like personally taking a boot knife to your wallet and watching the money fall to the ground.
  
  For veteran mmo players, grind mentality is a hard thing to shake coming to GW2. However, it is purely a subjective one. There is no need to grind in GW2. I mean what for? A sword that has particles!? Big deal!
  For those that want to grind, go for a Legendary; for those that don’t, what do you have to worry about from guy that does own one? Nothing. Same stats, just cooler looking sword. Grind (in my opinion) comes from your personal plan once you get to 80. You need to ask yourself, “What do I want to do now?” To grind or not to grind?
  There are days I log into GW and find that doing my daily’s is taking too long; there are other days I play with random people or friends, and all of a sudden I see my daily’s pinging without even trying or caring about them. Some level 1 players will be thinking “must get to 80.” People going for Legendary will be logging in each day, going through the normal drill of farming and thinking “must get Legendary sooner!” Other players like myself will be more interested in making new friends, helping each other having a laugh and seeing how much trouble we can get into. Which, to me, is what an MMO is all about. For me, taking down a zone boss with a plastic knife and fork with ten friends all running around in our undies would be more rewarding than killing it with “Super Uber Epic Sword Of Legendary Grind and Stats!”
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Vanessa-Wilson/755259388 Vanessa Wilson
    
    You are exactly right. End game content (what i refer to as the hampster wheel”) was created by those games… not for sake of just giving you stuff to do. It was created, so you’d have a NEED to come back to play. A NEED to play their monthly subs.
    
    GW2 conversely has no sub. Therefore, they didn’t need that wheel trick. However, people come to this game like. “no wheel? no water tube in this cute little aquarium box they want me to enjoy myself in? *rage*”
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1260066056 Steven Diaz
  
  I don’t feel like you understand the problem. Content and grinding aren’t the main issue. Log in to the game and tell me how thriving the community is. The community seems dead unless you happen to be one of the lucky few to be in a very socially active guild. The problem isn’t the community, it’s the adopted game design that is too straight forward and provides things too quickly without actually bonding individuals. Games like SWG didn’t have massive amounts of content, but what they did was let players make communities and create their own bonds. Then you have a game like GW2 where the only time you really get any sense of community is during dungeons and even there people are cranky and annoyed because they have to grind them so many times that they don’t want to deal with the new players.
  
  The community (WE, the players) aren’t the problem. Developers creating games without any real understanding of community IS the problem. Check out all the older games and see how active they are. Heck, check WoW’s chat. It’s far more active than recent games. People just don’t socialize, that’s due to poor planning by game developers. I still remember teaming up with people in many other games to deal with the difficulty of the content and I’m not talking about dungeons or raids. I hate WoW, only played it about a week. What I DO remember from WoW is that there were people teaming up to kill faster because enemies hit hard and had a lot of HP.
  
  In a themepark, the only real way to stimulate the community with making the average game difficult. In a sandbox game, there’s plenty to do including giving players the ability to shape the world around them. Force people to group, force them to discover on their own, force them to TALK to other players for information. Long gone are the days when you had to actually explore and ask people where things were. Instead, now we get a POI on the map telling you where everything is. Does it make it easier? Sure, but that also means you don’t have to talk to other people to find anything, to kill anything, or do anything in general. General chat shouldn’t be devoid of life, but that’s what all this hand holding does and then you have the retards that get upset when you start a conversation in general chat, because “that’s not what it’s there for”.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Vanessa-Wilson/755259388 Vanessa Wilson
    
    Maybe you just don’t play on a very social server. I’ve been on Henge of Denravi, Blackgate, Fort Aspenwood, and now I live on Anvil Rock.
    All fo these servers had socialization. Some didn’t when i’d enter a zone, but I’d hop on /M and start up some chatter. Usually I’d get others happy to socialize. Interestingly enough, every now and then, we get someone who yells at us for “spamming map chat” with … oh who’d guess what people do in a chat…. CHAT! lol ^_^
    
    and this game does lend to community with dynamic events. You just have to be willing to get to know the people you play with. The biggest issue I see is that even though we can play with people regardless of guilds; a lot of people are not socializing outside of their guilds.
    
    that’s another issue coming back to the community. Guilds are important, and we all understand that. However, players also need to realize that the social climate on your given server is created BY the players who socialize with each other – regardless of which guild you belong to.. or if you don’t belong to any.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Vanessa-Wilson/755259388 Vanessa Wilson
  
  THANK YOU! This.. so much this!!! I have to agree with you. I think some of it has to do with the hampster wheel mindsets as well. That also comes back to the community having a mindset they are carrying over from previous games to Guild Wars 2.
  
  If you bring someone new to GW2, the first thing you should tell them is to set aside their notions from previous games, so that they can experience this game by virtue of it’s own right. :3
http://www.facebook.com/people/Hermes-Vasconcellos-Netto/100000628002625 Hermes Vasconcellos Netto

There is the same grind as you will find in any MMO. If you want to get the looks from an specific instance you will need to replay it about 25 times. If you want to play fractals at higher levels you will need to grind the lower levels until you get the right drops or the right amount of tokens to get the gear you need.

The grind does not seem to be the problem, most MMO players accept it’s existence as something normal and part of the game. The problem lays with the fact that the trading post is playing a major role in the game right now. We seem to be playing Trade Wars to be honest. MMO players don’t mind grinding stuff for their game, but they do mind when some parts of the game become unacessible do to market manipulation and extreme inflation.
- St_Draco
  
  What parts of the game are going to become inaccessible due to the economy? I’ll still be able to run dungeons, WvW, sPvP, etc. regardless of what happens with the in game economy. So what are these parts of the game you are referring too?
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Hermes-Vasconcellos-Netto/100000628002625 Hermes Vasconcellos Netto
    
    I am referring to cosmetic progression. Aquisition of legendaries and unique skins. All the rest remains unaffected.
    
    The point where the economy is suffering the most is when it comes to cores. They are the most expensive itens to create legendaries and unique weapons with special skins.
    
    The problem with that is that cores are not really farmable, not in the amount required to do those itens. So you will need do use the Trading Post to aquire them. But since the stock on those itens is very low and the aquisition very random they are always in short supply. For that reason their prices are very easy to manipulate, causing spikes in their prices like crazy.
    
    For exemple, in december the prices of the charged core where heavly manipulated and spiked to 4.5 g at a certain point. Certain weapons use 350 of those cores. You can make the math and figure out that is quite a lot of money.
- CannibalShinobi
  
  False, you only have to run each path in a dungeon 8 times to unlock a complete full set of armor. That isn’t a grind when compared to getting end game armor for any other MMO. And in order to get to higher fractals you have to play lower fractals is a grind is just completely asinine to me.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Hermes-Vasconcellos-Netto/100000628002625 Hermes Vasconcellos Netto
    
    If you consider that each dungeon has 3 paths and you need to run all of them 8 times you in fact need to run the dungeon about 25 times. Ok, each path is somewhat diferent, however you still need to play thru 25 dungeon runs.
    
    I don’t mind this kind of grind, but it does exist.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Vanessa-Wilson/755259388 Vanessa Wilson
  
  It’s also fair to keep in mind, The Fractals were created to be the sort of hampster wheel that the playerbase is craving. It is there to provide people the “progression” oriented playstyle that people want out of “end game”.
  
  I think part of the problem is that games like WoW have seduced mmo’ers with their hampster wheel. To the point that the vast majority of their fans are in love with that wheel. They go to other games and expect and demand to get their wheel there as well.
  
  My understanding of GW2 when I bought it on the first day or pre-sales, this game wasn’t going to have a hampster wheel. I for one am ecstatic that’s the case. I was often ostracized and left out by so many friends in WoW because I had ZERO INTEREST in running on that hampster wheel. so, thank you Arena Net. I can play a game, run fun content without having to play the hampster wheel game.
Joseph Legemah

the word grind has taken on a new meaning since WoW came out. a grindy MMO is lineage 2 or AION…plain and simple.

in the current majority of mmo gamers minds it has become “spending more than four play sessions doing something to get something you want”.
MysticLlamaMan

A certain amount of grind in an MMORPG is acceptable and I’d even go so far as to say fun. The most egregious crime MMO’s are making is the segregation of players into zones, instances and alternate dimensions, I feel like I’m playing dress-up in a hotel with themed rooms rather than an MMORPG.

Where is the interaction needed and encouraged with other players to set off into the world? Why is the immersion so non-existent that I can’t even sit in a chair or booth at the bars in the cities? MMORPGs today feel TOO straight forward, too polished and too generic with a distinct focus on game mechanics and “end-game” rather than adventure and interaction.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1260066056 Steven Diaz
  
  I couldn’t find the right words, but you did it for me. This is the EXACT problem. They’ve forgotten that games can never give enough content, but if you stimulate the community, player bonds will make the content last and the world feel alive.
http://profile.yahoo.com/KMMYFK5MJ2APHGWIL2MEKPH3AM the_founder

“Does A Guild Wars 2 Grind Exist?”

Is this title rhetorical or sarcastic or ironic? All three?

The entire game is grind. duh. Thats the business model: Endure the grind or use the cash shop. period. Thats if you want to experience the cosmetic “endgame” which consists solely of grinding karma, rares, gold, and dungeon tokens… lots and lots and lots of grind.
- dawolv
  
  How is grinding the business model?
  They are not requiring you to grind.
  I play since Beta and I don’t grind and I’ve been enjoying myself a lot with the game.
  
  Theres nothing I need to chase, noone I need to keep up with to play.
  If I don’t play for a week – noone cares and I don’t have to put in any time to “make up” for the time I “lost”. (Seeing as losing and winning time is always a matter on perspective)
- http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.hornsby.7 Jonathan Hornsby
  
  I take it by your jab at the cash shop you are referring to the selling of exp and karma boosts, yes? Well, I should point out that those same boosts, and better ones, can be crafted in-game with an almost ridiculous level of ease by anyone with the cooking skill.
- CannibalShinobi
  
  You clearly have no idea what you are talking about, if you are grinding to get a full exotic set then you are not playing the game optimally. Nothing from the cash shop is going to grant you some amazing shortcut to victory.
http://www.facebook.com/billy.bacsko Billy Bacsko

… great opinion piece.

“My End Game” has been a bit of a hybrid of the fancy look and stat chase, and I love how everyone has the ability to have their own personal chase.

I love the look of all the dungeon sets. I love the ease and versatility of respecting for the situation. So with those pillars holding up my plateau of fun, I have been building a wardrobe for ultimate combat.

I have 2 level 80s, with 5 full exotic sets between them (3-2). Each with a particular stat focus and skin look. It was super fun building each one, the tank set, the wvw set, ninja set, etc. Now I have the sense of being able to run anywhere and do anything, while being constantly prepared no matter the situation. With my “load-outs” at the ready i log in every day or so to go after the huge amount of content i still have yet to accomplish, such as the many dungeons i’ve yet to run, maps that need exploring, mats that need gathering, and fools that need ganking.

When I see you on the fields of battle Mr. Winter, know that you have a very prepared comrade at your side. ^_^
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

Good article. Enjoyed the read. I did enjoy playing Guild Wars 2 seriously for several months and enjoy popping back in a couple of times a month.

I did find crafting to be a bit of a grind, so lost interest. But, plan on going back and finish level crafting…someday.
- dawolv
  
  The problem with crafting is that if you don’t lay out a plan for yourself (“I have 5 types of weapons/armor pieces to craft, that means i need all insignias/inscriptions 5 times, every weapon piece 3 times for the 3 types of inscriptions therefore I need so and so many dowels… and so forth)
  If you don’t do it that way (which I found out the hard way) you end up with a bunch of unuseable items and no items left in your quarry to earn XP from and then you are brought to a full stop because you wasted too many materials.
  (since you can’t salvage dowels, insignias and so forth)
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    That is so true. Sadly the only goals I could find was crafting a set of armor at level 80 and crafting a legendary weapon(!!!). The goals were so far off and I was constantly fighting bag space (didn’t spend real money on expanding inventory), I simply found it to be a grind and stopped playing.
    
    Now when I log into GW2, I continue to gather materials, but I’m so far behind in crafting, I find it to be pointless.
    - Jay
      
      Of all the crafting you did… did you forget to craft bags? lol, those are kinda important. Discovery is the key… Don’t waste materials, and do like Dawolv said, plan out exactly what you’ll need and how much of it. It levels up so fast with a good plan through discovery, I don’t see how it could be considered a grind.
      - dawolv
        
        Excactly.
        The thing is the game doesn’t really give you a proper tutorial for it. After having crafted through a tier you can see the strings behind the curtain, but I can see how after the first time it get’s frustrating.
        
        Discovery is something I save for when none of the standart recipies in my quarry are underlined yellow anymore.
        
        Another great way to level Artificing is tonics!
        I have no idea who could use all of those tonics that are being produced in that process (besides Flame Legion, Orrian and Nightmare Tonics – for Dungeons).
http://twitter.com/RichieProcopio Richie Procopio

As long as content isn’t gated by gear levels and the things you farm a lengthy amount of time for are cosmetic or in some way options, then I don’t mind the grind. For me, optional grind is fine. If grinding is mandatory to experience content or be at the top of my game, then it bugs me. I still do it….but it bugs me. And part of the reason it bugs me is because not everyone I play with is going to put in the same effort.

I will say, however, I don’t like how going for your legendary paralyzes you from going after other cool things. I mean…..it would be neat to go for some of the other exotic weapons, but I’m not going to dump a gift or scads of lodestones into an exotic hammer because that will make my legendary quest much longer. I hate that overlap. It makes it feel like the only long term goal I can have is the legendary.

In regards to you not getting exotic gear because it will hamper your legendary search, I’m not really buying that one. Sure you can use as much gold as possible, but crafted exotics sell for between 2-4g on the TP. Craft them yourself and save even more gold. It really doesn’t set you back much to have full exotics especially when you’ll need over 1K gold for your legendary. Just deck ‘em out!
- http://www.kaiketsu.enjin.com/ Corey “Crimzen” Jenkins
  
  Pretty much agree with this. Every mmorpg is going to have a grind. I think it’s how they go about it that matters. Yes, there’s grinds in GW2, but they are pretty flexible in how they allow you to get to your end goal with there being multiple paths to get the best stuff. I think that’s awesome. I’m a huge dungeon runner, and I was able to get a full arah set exp set plus the weapon for my thief without spending a dime and without feeling like it was mandatory. Honestly this is the most enjoyable mmo experience I’ve had in a long time.
- http://twitter.com/winterinformal Jason Winter
  
  I’m getting my exotics, but slowly and economically. Unlike gold, dungeon tokens have no use other than to buy gear (the 500 I need for my Legendary notwithstanding). Karma is nearly the same; I’ll easily have my 1 million+ when I need it.
  
  At 3 gold apiece, it’d cost me about 30g or so per character to get a full set of armor/weapons per character. With 2 semi-equipped 80s right now, that might be about 15g — none of which I’ll have to spend once I get enough tokens. Yes, that’s not much compared to the 1000 or so I need, but journey of a million miles, etc.
  
  Besides, you’ve run dungeons/fractals with me, I’m not that awful, am I?
  - http://twitter.com/RichieProcopio Richie Procopio
    
    You’re not awful, but you could be so much more! Your logic with the dungeon tokens makes sense. It’s probably more a factor that you love all of your characters. If you just picked one and said this is my main toon….you could justify getting that one maximum gear and it wouldn’t be that expensive.
    
    The rare gear isn’t that much lower, but it adds up. Are you using superior or major runes with the rare set? If you’re only using major then it really adds up to a significant loss in statistics.
  - Jay
    
    Awful is a strong word… but yes.
    
    jk, I got most of my armor set through tokens as well. It’s a custom set that I planned out, so it took me going to various dungeons, even dreadful places like TA. I hate those poison plants…
    
    I don’t mind a grind at all tbh, ANet just has to make it fun. FFXI leveling was pretty much all grind, but the group combat was so fun, I enjoyed spending hours working together trying to perfect our team dynamic.
    
    I do think the PVE needs work mechanically and fundamentally. It’s close, but having no trinity requires major fine tuning. I hope they’re up to the task…
http://www.facebook.com/people/Alex-Mac/777995513 Alex Mac

You grind tokens, you grind badges in WvW, you grind and spend glory in sPvP, you grind karma in PvE (especially endgame). Yes, there is a grind. And although it doesn’t necessarily affect parity as much as it could, it’s possibly one of the more pronounced and more laboriously tedious grinds in an MMO.

Does it stop the game from being fun? Depends on how you get your kicks. I like WvW because at least that is a bit dynamic due to fighting players. Do I enjoy running about Orr to get whatever karma I need for my next Grenth armor piece? Not really.
- dawolv
  
  I think the issue people have with grind is not that it’s grindy. You can’t expect infinate content.
  The problem most people have with grind is that it locks away geared content, but since that’s not an issue with GW2, I don’t care if everything you do when you’re 80 is grinding. If you do nothing but grinding at 80 you have noone but yourself to blame.
  
  I think we need to just stop talking about a term that so many people define as something different without even scratching the surface of it’s significance, namely:
  You cannot build an MMO with zero grind, and if you would, your player base will accuse you of not having anything to work for (as done with GW2 pre-release).
GammaWolf

Very good article, its interesting to see how the current game compares to the manifesto.

The criticism towards ascended gear is legitimate since they are the BIS pieces for 2 rings and back, yet currently the only way to get it is to grind fractals which is not very friendly to solo or casual players, and it splits the player base into different fractal levels making it hard to find groups.

The issue for Anet is that no matter how hard they try to make the endgame consist of interesting and fun gameplay rather than straight gear grind is that anything will eventually become repetitive and boring (see drop off in WvW).

Gear grind is the easiest way to get players to feel its worthwhile to keep repeating the same content over and over, but the cost is that you are telling a large portion of the player base that they will no longer be relevant or viable.
http://twitter.com/MiZTiiX MiZTiiX

the reason why it feels grindy to me is because of lack of end game content. The grind comes in when you are doing the same thing over and over which is esentially what happens when you ahve no fresh end game
http://www.facebook.com/kirzansix Mike Coulombe

Guild Wars 2 doesn’t feel grindy the first time. It’s like an enjoyable ride to the top that felt very “automatic” to me, since everything gives XP you’re technically ALWAYS leveling. For me it was the second character which I couldn’t get past level 40. I dunno… it’s not the same. Probably because back then, I didn’t know (and didn’t care to spoil it) that there was barely any end-game. While, sure, you can do fractals… I didn’t get into them.

I’m an EQ baby (which applies to WoW too). I like streamlined, clear, yet structured end-game character progression. You got this, now you can do this, then you can do this, etc… It gives a sense that you start off as pretty weak, and get that much stronger as you climb the stairs. GW2 is more like: Buy your set of 80 masterwork, start dungeons, farm that 1 set, the end. You may have to farm a different set for looks because 95% of the sets look bad/too simple. That is, of course, only if you don’t have the money, cause you can buy the equivalent.

GW2 doesn’t keep in fans of “the grind’ simply because they used their lazy GW1 itemization of really only 3-4 stats that matter, and very specific gear/gear types that has these stats leaving you very few options and making it extremely short to acquire. It’s fun to keep a level playing ground, but, no, not in PVE, I can a lot of gear, a lot of content/progression, I want THOUGHT put into it.

Does A Guild Wars 2 Grind Exist?

In the beginning…

No grind allowed

Grinds my gears

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Last Stand At Southsun May 28th

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