The currency grind:Every MMO has its own currency, from World of Warcraft's gold pieces to Final Fantasy XI's Gil or EVE Online's ISK. In most MMOs, currency is awarded for killing enemies and completing quests or tasks. That currency is used to buy new gear and equipment for your character, materials for tradeskills or professions and not much else. In level-based games like Everquest 2, players need to buy new gear as they outgrow their existing gear in order to keep their characters as powerful as possible. Beyond this, there's usually not much need for currency and so little need for a currency grind. Especially at maximum level where you won't need to buy new gear, players have very little need for a continual supply of money beyond what they normally collect as rewards.
This is one place where EVE Online has really made its mark. In the hyper-capitalistic universe of New Eden, anything and everything has a price. With enough ISK, you could hire hundreds of mercenary players to wage war on your enemies, start up your own space station or maybe just put together the ultimate mission-running battleship. Since there's always something new to spend money on, the main grind in EVE is for currency. Unlike in most popular MMOs on the market today, players in EVE do need a continual supply of money as if their ship is destroyed, they'll need to buy a replacement.
This need for constant income leads most players to find something they can consistently make money off and repeat it until they can afford a few new ships. For some, the currency grind means running missions for their favourite agent, for others it involves hunting valuable high-bounty NPCs in 0.0 space and for a few it means mining ore while quietly reading a book. The interesting thing is that this repetitive gameplay isn't actually necessary to gain ISK.Grinding for ISK provides a way of making a steady income but it's possible to make much larger amounts of isk without repetitive gameplay. Alternative professions have erupted all over the game, with players profiting off them in creative ways. Some players manipulate market prices to their advantage or run large corporations with high tax rates. Others run confidence scams for billions of ISK at a time or invest in player-run investment schemes. Some players even use their artistic abilities to draw forum signatures for ISK, a service entirely endorsed by the game's creators CCP.
Summary:
Grind is something we love to complain about but when it comes down to it, isn't it just a way to progress in an MMO? Repetitive gameplay offers us a simple and straightforward relationship between work and reward that most of us find oddly comforting. EVE Online is one of the few MMOs that doesn't force the player to use repetitive gameplay elements to get ahead in the game but the option is still there and is very much used. In EVE's open-ended sandbox universe, players can succeed hugely based entirely on their social skills, business instinct or just sheer determination. When faced with this vast, open-ended world where we can make our own opportunities, why then do so many of us stick to the grind? I think deep down, we all love a bit of a grind.
Brendan "Nyphur" Drain is an early veteran of EVE Online and writer of the weekly EVE Evolved column here at massively.com. The column covers anything and everything relating to EVE Online, from in-depth guides to speculative opinion pieces. If you want to message him, send him an e-mail at brendan.drain AT weblogsinc DOT com.
