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Over the last month or so I’ve taken a much needed break from World of Warcraft and turned back to console gaming to fill the gap, which has been a nice change. Been able to switch a game on and get something out of it within 30 mins is something I missed when playing Warcraft and the main reason I took a step back for a while.

I like the game and enjoy playing with friends in the guild but lately, looking at the prices for items I’d like, the rep grind needed for heroics, attunement to get into kara, the sheer volume of mats needed for professions and the incurred costs that go along with it, it all boils down to one thing.. grinding.

Want more money? Go grind. Need some rep? Go grind.. Need mats for professions? Go grind… Want to start raiding? Go grind dungeon ‘xyz’….

Now, 1-70 the grind is tolerable. Items drop you can use or sell, you gain mats for professions, you gain XP, learn new abilities, visit new zones, learn about some lore. All good. Get to level 70 and suddenly the game has very little outside of raiding to offer.

Fine.. go start raiding then? First you need to grind your gear which means repeated runs of dungeon ‘xyz’ all the while hoping your group doesn’t have another member in need of the item you want. Even if your the only mage in the group, you then have to contend with the ‘luck’ factor. Then you need to grind some rep/dungeons to continue which is a lengthy process.

In a game like Monster Hunter, no matter what level I am. If I want ‘x’ armour, I go kill ‘x’ monster and the parts I need drop from it. The luck factor is still involved as the high end gear requires specific items and you may have to grind the monster over and over, but by and large the system is more skill based than some. Most armour requires common materials that drop reliably each run, you just need set amounts of it. Therefore your avatar is only as good as the last monster you killed and to proceed you need some skill to take down the next hardest monster using the last monsters armour. That’s the skill and joy of Monster Hunter. In a game like WoW, your character is only as good as the random loot table in each drop.

You could argue that these systems are very similar in that you have to kill say, 10 Rathalos in Monster Hunter to obtain armour crafted from its parts.. but you also may have to run a dungeon 10 times in WoW before ‘x’ boss drops the item you require. The difference is, for every Rathalos run completed I can check my bags and see how many more items I need to craft my armour, there is no mechanic in WoW to say, you downed this boss 8 times, 3 more and he’ll drop the item you want. Its all luck based and you get nothing to show for an unsuccessful run.. MH is luck based but rewards you for every run you complete by visibly pushing you closer to obtaining the item you desire.

For me, WoW is fun but the bottomless well that is the level cap sucks the fun out of the game for me. If I see very little reward for hour after hour of gaming then before long my interest dips and fades completely. However, keep dangling that visible carrot under my nose and I’ll keep running.

Its these points that further enforce my belief that the reason WoW is such a time-sink is not because Blizzard wanted to provide a really lengthy game to keep you occupied long past other games, its simply a business model to keep you paying. The ones who tire of the grind soon cancel accounts and move on to pastures anew. No biggie, subscriber numbers keep going and the regular expansions are sure to draw new players into the game so they can afford to lose a few minority players. For the ones who don’t see it as that much of a grind, the ones who see it as a continuation of the game, the truly hardcore who will sink hour after hour into the game for side-grades that add tiny increments to stats, those are the people this game caters too. The longer it takes to do something, the longer that player is paying Blizzard a monthly fee and ultimately I believe that’s the reason it takes so damn long to do so little in this game.

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