Mr_Grey

For the most part, I would suspect we're in agreement on the definition. However, after so many years, the grind is something more of a "gray area," based more on the final sense of satisfaction more than the content you're running.

For instance, we've done the ITF to the point where I can pretty much watch a movie while running it. However, there's a difference between playing the ITF every few days, or maybe once a week, and churning it out night after night, possibly even multiple times a night (though I did do that a once, successfully, and it was rather enjoyable; but then, we weren't exactly trying to just crank it out, I'd been on different groups and I'd played different characters, so it wasn't exactly the same experience).

There's a certain tension that builds as you do the same exact task over and over again, day after day, night after night, the same way every time...

Now, this is where it's weird for me. After a couple I-Trials, I feel like that's what I've done, even if I've been playing different ones. It's like we go into them thinking "Well. Here we go again."

I couldn't have said it better. Yeah, the Trials themselves are designed as a grind.

But it's not this inherent nature that usually turns me off. It's the way we start to go about it (yes, I'm including myself on this one, too).

Like I said in my previous post, you get to doing these things enough times, you start to think you're invincible. The grind is inevitable (at least it seems like it). The solution is such a simple, formulaic pattern. How could we ever have a problem with thi-WHO THE HELL **CKED UP!? Oh! We've got an MM on the League!? What the Hell is an MM doing summoning his PETS!? Nevermind that, what's an MM even DOING here!? DOESN'T HE KNOW HOW WE DO THESE THINGS!? **CKING KICK HIM! NO! NO! Don't explain it to him! WHY AREN'T YOU KICKING HIM, RAID LEADER!? GAWD! HEY! HEY! MM! Get in the corner! GET IN THE CORNER! Stay there! You're slowing us down!

...

I'm exaggerating. For effect. And I hope it's a little funny, too. Sorry, I was watching Titus and got inspired.

The thing is, though, I can't actually be really mad at the people who did that the last time I saw it, despite the fact that was a good friend of mine they were yelling at. Up until I realized it was him, my first reaction upon seeing the IDF turn toward the League was "Alright. Who f'ed up? How often do we do this stupid thing, we need to be REMINDED to keep the aggro off the damn team!?"

I've aggroed IDF while hitting the doors with acid before. You know what I do? I take what they do to me like a man. I stand aside, and let them butcher me far away from the rest of the League.

I don't cry or nothing.

Not even when Marauder comes at me with that weird thing coming off the side of his glove... My God, what the Hell is that!? WHAT'S HE DOING!?

...

Anyway...

The pattern had been just about SOLID up until one of his zombies just decided all on its merry own to take a bite out of a IDF soldier. And he was trying to reign it in! It just wandered off.

Zombie: "Screw you, boss. I'm hungry."
MM: "DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT THESE PEOPLE WILL DO TO ME!?"
Zombie: "Nope." *chomp*
IDF Soldier: "Ho-HO! We've got a group over there!"
Marauder: "**CKING KILL 'EM!"
MM: "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

I already exaggerated the typical reaction.

It wasn't until I realized it was my friend that had accidentally temporarily delayed us (because we still stomped the HELL out of that Trial) that I noticed my train of thought. Then I thought about why I was thinking that way.

How many times had I felt the same for random people I didn't really know? What's more... Why don't I care that I don't know them? We had our time together, they helped me grind... Why don't I care if I see them again or not?

The point is, we get into it and this behavior becomes acceptable. Then we get folks who get defensive, because they weren't just some jerk trying to ruin everybody's good time or mooch, they were actually trying to help. And their defense usually can be summed up as a nuclear offensive.

Then things get out of hand.

And, when everything is said and done and everybody's feelings are so hurt they may as well be bleeding like stuck pigs...

There's just silence.

Nobody wants to talk anymore. Everybody's afraid of another flare up. Their emotions are so raw, the damage lasts for such a long time.

And after a time, you get these thoughts in your head... That these people don't like you anymore. Because you had a fight. And nobody's talking. And the few times they do, it's short, clipped, and always seems like when you get involved in the conversation, it just stops again.

Now, yeah, I'm channeling some personal experience into that, but I'm not the only one who's dealt with it. And grinding isn't entirely the heart of it, I wouldn't go that far.

But grinding doesn't encourage conversation. It's not friendly. I don't feel like I've accomplished anything when I've done it. I just feel tired.

And everything's quiet. It worries me. Because eventually, I'll break the silence that's got me feeling isolated and reach out, just to be sure. Things get settled, and we can move on.

But everything's still so damn quiet afterward. For the longest time.

This is still one of the friendlier servers out there (I've been to others, I still venture out to them, from time to time). It just doesn't feel as friendly as it used to anymore.

And I can't help but feel that there's a little bit of disquiet after a really good I-Trial grind.

Now, this is where things take a turn in my rant, away from the melodramatic. I don't think it's because the I-Trials are really draining anything out of us spiritually. No, I actually think it's something simpler than that.

I think we're just so damn exhausted. It takes a lot of concentration to hammer out a few I-Trials! I know I've felt my brain buzz when I do a group of them. And that's another factor for the sudden, snapping reactions when one little thing goes a little wrong.

Then something goes VERY wrong, and... Hoo-boy...

I suppose that whatever you deleted before was supposed to be worse than the insinuation I'm seeing here.

I guess I'll see you guys at the Trials if I see you, if you'll have me, or whatever. If it doesn't happen, well... Then I guess that's how it is. I've said my peace, I've made my arguments, and I guess I said it in a way that left you all hurt enough to want to disparage me and my approach to the game. For that, I'm sorry. However it turns out from here, I understand.

I'll remember that the next time I'm left burning at a doorway while the civilians are bludgeoning me to death with big rocks.

You mean, we, *gasp*, worked TOGETHER!? Are we not supposed to do that anymore?

I was playing on a different strategy, nothing more. I know the strategy you're dealing with, and I don't like it. You've got everybody herding like cattle from building to building, letting the Pacification build and build until there's a small bonfire in front of every door and the civilians may as well be throwing dump trucks at us. The only care given to the exterior is made when Maelstrom rears his ugly head, at which time a team is designated to deal with him and his sucker-punching butt. Even with shifted characters, +3 characters, I've eaten pavement more times than I care for on that strategy.

I said I had a different experience, not that you were invalid. Calm the Hell down. I'm not the one who "continued with this." T's the one who continued this, trying to explain to the rest of us how he intentionally engaged in a stratagem of recklessness and turned out with a poor performance as a result, as if that's supposed to be some sort of surprise.