Massively^™

This makes sense to me. It's a good shift in thinking. It reminds me of the whole argument that the true in-game currency for most MMORPGs is really time. That being said, it makes me think that gold selling really isn't as bad as most make it out to be, because someone is still spending the time; it's just being done more efficiently than you would do it.

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I used to play a game called gunz-online. It's not an mmo, it's a third person shooter, but your character gets experience and gains levels and can use better guns/armor and whatnot. I loved playing the game but it was possible to feel the grind effect there as well. As I was nearing the level where I could get this awesome trench coat I started to look for the quickest ways to get xp.

The best of these was to play deathmatch games in a level called Mansion. There was a hallway, at the end of which I could stand and wait for loads of people to come in from the sides and start fighting eachother. I would stand with my assault rifle at head hight, wait for my pray, and then fire down the hallway killing everybody and giving me all the xp. It wasn't nearly as fun as playing the game properly but it was efficient.

Once I got the trench coat though, it was back to my trusty duely revolvers and team games on Castle.

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There is a big difference between just existing and really living your life to the fullest. That's the same difference between an enjoyably experienced game and one that repetitively requires you to "grind" in it. So in a nutshell, the experience of what you're doing in the game at that moment really determines if it's fun or a grind (and obviously this will vary from person to person and character to character).

For example, if I have to run all over a zone and collect 50 of the same thing, that really to me is a huge pain in the ass. If instead of collecting 50 things though, I had to instead just collect 10 but at least of few of these things were in difficult to access locations that required some thought and strategies to achieve them (as well as giving supplemental treasures in the process) then I'd probably have more fun getting them, even though the time factor to achieve them might be exactly the same.

BTW that's one reason why I think games should allow you to instantly level a character once you've obtained that level with another character. It's because if I do something once, it is a new and enjoyable experience. If I have to do it again though for every character I create then it is going to lose more and more of it's luster until it eventually becomes a grind.

And this also relates to how WoW is designed at it's core. If Blizzard is fine with the fact that many zones aren't used anymore onces you've progressed through them then they should also be fine with me not wanting to have to level up again through that zone. So in a sense, you could even say let us have zone based instant leveling at the very least, so if you've ever leveled a character through that zone, any other character you create can bypass the leveling for that zone. I think this would alleviate a helluva of a lot of feelings with regards to grinding.

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