Recently, in the MMORPG.Com forums, there was a post from a person asking the MMO community to recommend a game with no grind. The overwhelming response from the community was somewhat disturbing. MMORPG's are about the grind. If you don't like it, then play another game. Of course, some people recommended the instanced world of Guild Wars or the AFK grind of Eve Online.

Has the MMORPG gaming community been so tattered and tortured by the "Grind" that we feel it is a necessary component? Does an MMORPG really need to include some forms of grind to be an MMORPG?

It made me think back to an article written two years ago by Raph Koster and how his sarcastic, yet brilliant summary of the MMORPG has pretty much gone unnoticed and forgotten. It has fallen on virtual deaf ears. In his article titled "What are the lessons of MMORPG's today?", he outlines some fundamental flaws of the modern MMORPG.

In the modern MMORPG, you create your character, talk to the guy with some sort of symbol hovering above his head then perform certain tasks, sometimes in a particular order for him. Rince and repeat this several hundred times and you have successfully completed the MMORPG grind. Eventually, you find yourself with a journal full of things that sound something like this:

Kill 20 of these, Find 5 of those, Kill some guy, Kill his friends, Kill his family, Steal his family treasure, Kill 25 of something else, Kill 10 of something different that looks and sounds like the rest, but has a different name.

Is the community satisfied with the status quo? Do people seriously enjoy repetitive gaming? Does the future hold more of the same?

When Raph Koster wrote this article, I had hopes that somewhere, someone at some software development company actually read it. If you are a true fan of MMORPG's and have not read this article, you should stop right now and go read it. I want to point out some of my favorite quotes in his article.

In today's MMORPG, little attention is given to the solo player. Sure, games like EQ2 and WoW have solo paths to get to max level, but the solo player is forgotten once the level cap is hit. Even though MMORPG's are games of social interaction, there is a good amount of people who want both. It's one of the reason why Guild Wars has been so successful outside of competitive PVP.

People are only good at one thing. You never, ever, ever change jobs. If you want to, you probably need to die.

Once upon a time there was a game called Star Wars Galaxies that challenged this logic. We are so set on MMORPG's needing to have levels. Games have become a race from 1 to 70,80, etc. If you are 20, you can't play with a 70. If you are 50, you don't want to be bothered with teens. You could freely build your character into whatever path you wanted. You could mix and match different professions. You could mix crafting with adventuring. Today, you pick a profession and if you change your mind, the only solution is suicide and reincarnation. Everquest 2 has a great system that allows for mentoring. City of Heroes has it too. Games based on player levels need to have some sort of system that allows friends to play with eachother regardless of level.

Which leads us to: If you don’t keep up with the Joneses, you will never see them again. In fact, if you don’t keep up with your friends, you will never see them again either.

We are told at end game, MMORPG's are for guilds only. If you don't have a large group to slay the draon, then you cannot play. Unfortunately, along the way, on the grind, we are told the exact opposite. You are on your own. If your friends can't keep up with you, then they are left behind. Only the fastest grinders survive. I have seen many people quite MMORPG's because they couldn't keep up with the power gamers.

This is the statement that hits this grinding nail squarely on the head. People who embrace the MMORPG grind say the grind is part of the fun. The grind is the journey to the end. If you honestly believe that killing 500 boars, 500 wolves, 2,000 spiders and 1,500 skeletons is a fantastic journey that we should be embracing, we can only hope that somewhere, some developer with a revolutionary vision disagrees.

So when MMORPG players scorn those who are looking for a fun and less grindy alternative, it's pretty sad to see pages full of players supporting the MMORPG instead of embracing the possibility of a grindless MMORPG. An MMORPG where the adventure truly is the game.