On last week’s podcast, I joked that Albion Online’s grind is deceptively short because once you get to what appears to be the outer rings of skills, you realize that the skills have another hundred levels apiece. I expect it to take several months of dedicated play to reach those upper echelons. Actually, let’s be real, I expect I’ll never get there at all and will content to merely muddle along at my own pace! I might be stretching myself thin in too many sandboxes already!
But it definitely made me think about grind and perceived grind in MMOs. I mean, this is a genre where a game like Neverwinter just shortened its leveling curve such that you can basically get to the top in an easy weekend. In World of Warcraft, people are still able to zip to the level cap in a couple of days if they know how to power through it. Sure, there’s a lot more to do in those games than just hit the caps, but it changes how “grindy” I perceive those games to be.
What do you think – what’s the grindiest MMO still alive as of 2021?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
