Need to grind vs. the need to have fun

[Sobend]

It seems like so many people these days are so focused on grinding and getting their 99s when in the past people were more interested in doing other things, like minigames. For example, Castle Wars was much more populated in the past than it is now and many players today are only trying to get the completionist cape requirement. Most other minigames are faring worse.

 

What do you think caused this? Is this good or bad? For how many players does maxing out go hand in hand with enjoyment?

Edited March 11, 2014 by Sobend

[Fabio]

Well Castle Wars wasn't made miserable by Jagex back then!! I remember playing Castle wars for months and months!!! Zspear spec broom animation collapse rock explosive barricade bam. But Jagex took it all away!

[Army of One]

^ Just use the kick ability instead.

 

I've been thinking about this too. I believe that some people enjoy maxing, and would prefer to do that over minigames. However if these minigames are going to help you max (ie. Heist) they won't mind playing it at all.

I wish I had more time for minigames, but if I spend a day playing 2014 Castle Wars (:/) i'll come out with maybe 20 gold tokens and not an extra XP to my name, whilst if I spend a day fishing I might have 600,000k + or however much more.

[Sobend]

Is XP that important though?

[Guitarguy]

RuneScape has always been a very grindy game. In World of Warcraft, for example, you pretty much advance through the levels merely by doing quests, and even the optional skills on the side take relatively little time. Thus, there's a delineation between the fun things, most notably minigames and quests, and the not-so-fun yet necessary skilling.

I'm not the most qualified person to speculate about the causes, but perhaps it's proportional with RuneScape's activity. People generally balance their time between fun things and skilling, and if there aren't enough players to make the fun things fun, I'd be motivated to do a greater portion of skilling.

[Army of One]

Is XP that important though?

Without it, this game wouldn't even exist. If you enjoy maxing, then you should enjoy gaining XP, which is very important.

[Sobend]

Well XP has always been important to the game itself, but should high XP be important to the players?

[Aabid]

I remember playing before and I used to love having fun.

Then I would remember that to have fun I would need higher stats and I would grind. Although grinding isn't that fun (arguable) the end result is really satisfying after achieving whatever goal you achieve.