Online games often mean fulfilling endlessly repetitive tasks to obtain certain achievements, items, and successes. Therefore, we want to know what you spent the most time and effort on in a game, and whether it was worth it.
Hardly any MMO can do without it: The grind! And even though many people hate the grind, it’s simply part of it, and for some people, it may even be relaxing. Where else – except perhaps during long journeys or housework – do you have the leisure to listen to audiobooks or podcasts while also doing something good for your character or player account?
But grind is not just grind, and some treadmill activities in MMOs eventually take on the proportions of a Herculean task.
Grind in MMOs – Grand Marshal or Legendary Drunkard? – Both are Hard Work!
Especially many players probably still remember the PvP battlegrounds from the early days of World of Warcraft. There, you had to slaughter endless hours of other players to eventually reach the rank of “Grand Marshal.” To achieve that, you had to mercilessly farm other players for 12-16 hours a day for a month. A back-breaking job that some players used to share with friends!
Similarly time-consuming were certain titles in the first Guild Wars. For example, there was the notorious title “Unimprovable Beer Drinker.” If you wanted the drunkard title, you had to drink a lot, a lot, a lot of beer. To be precise, about 10,000 mugs! However, since alcohol was very expensive and otherwise only occurred more often at events, you had to grind as much as you could to get enough.
But other titles also represented a significant grind in Guild Wars. For example, the reputation points with the Kurzick and Luxon factions in the Factions expansion or the legendary title “Goddess Among Mortals,” which you could only get if you had 30(!) other extremely grind-intensive titles. For that, you could carry the title as the only accolade to the successor Guild Wars 2!
What was your toughest grind?
Jürgen says: For me, Guild Wars 1 was the toughest grinding fest. On the one hand, because it was also my first online game, and on the other hand, because I really wanted to become the Beer Drunkard of Tyria. But in the end, I had hardly any of the coveted titles by the release of Guild Wars 2 and I never became more than just a simple drunkard.
But how about you? What was the hardest and longest achievement you’ve ever attempted in an MMO? Did you complete it or eventually frustratedly tossed your two-handed sword or wand in the dirt? And if you persevered: was the reward at the end worth the effort? Let me know in the comments!
Also interesting: What do you do while grinding?
