We try to tell you that what you consider "boring" is actually fun for us.
Yeah, and i'm telling you that your kidding yourselves if you think doing the same thing over and over (aka grinding) is something any human enjoys on it's own... we're just not wired that way. But you can get yourself to enjoy almost anything using the right rewards, as per the scientific stuff in the Cracked article...
I find it's important to know the difference if you really want to be able to choose. It's not like i don't have stuff i enjoy just because i was conditioned to.
See. I think you might be wrong on this. Lets look at the bigger picture. I will use my work as an example since it is something I am more familiar with. People are creature of habits. How this come to be can be factor from many different reasons: upbringing, society, social interaction, chemical, psychological and what have you.
There are more people who actually enjoy the SAME pattern over and over again. There are some people who even DEMAND same pattern (OCD for example at my work) and do not want to derail from said pattern. Now being, IT, I have to introduce change once in a while to our technological network. I have to upgrade software to keep up with the market (students) I have upgrade OS, new LMS system, new teaching software and such and EVERY SINGLE time there are large pool of people who totally oppose it even when the software is actually an improvement from the previous version. People hate changes, much less drastic changes at my work but some will just adjust and move on. To me, this is a form of grinding. Maybe some will do it for a paycheck, but like others, enjoy teaching (the values that they see what we might not see) cause the paycheck is NOT that good compare to the private sectors.
I will go back to my old Ultima Online days. My friend and I love mining. We just mine all day in and day out. Generally, most people who mine minerals usually make something out of it and sell for in game money (in this case gold if you never play UO) but we never made ANYTHING much out of it. We just mine as much as we could and smelt into ingots and kept it. We did that for 7 years. We may occasionally use some of it to make stuff for ourselves and yet, we do that every day (most days) for the course of 7 years. After many changes of UO, it got boring and we quit. I was the last to go (my friend quit 2 years before me) and I continue to do the same thing. We literally had hundreds of thousands of ingot (max stack allow at the time I can't remember) sitting in bags in my tower (player housing) and I just left it there and unlock my door when I quit (gave it away)
I enjoy the time I spent there. I never regret spending the money (was 10$ a month to like 15$/mo)
am I kidding myself? possible, but to me, I enjoy it. Why would it matter if I was kidding myself? The main point is that it was fun for me at the time. That was the longest MMORPG I have ever played. I'm a crafter in MMO. I love to make things. I don't care if I never be rich like other crafters in other MMO, cause I enjoy making stuff and hoarding them.
I guess the basic question would be, why does MY idea of fun have to match YOUR idea of fun? I mean, heck, there are stuff that some consider fun (bungee jumping, white water rafting, skiing, para-sailing, scuba, racketball and such - these are what I consider fun) while my wife doesn't consider any of the previous activities fun for her at all. She does like snorkel but hate scuba. She loves canoe rides, but not kayak (she like calmer stuff usually) is she wrong? no. I love dancing, and she doesn't, but we both like different type of music.
I have seen that other (in my guilds) just want to make as many level 80 characters in WoW as possible. Not for raid, not for fame, just do it for herself. That is fun for her on the SAME side (thus basically the same story in WoW except starting area for like 20 levels or so) When I met her, she had like 10 at the time (in 2 accounts) until I came along, she never consider raiding at all (she was the one recruited me to the guild) but that is a different story.
As for grinding, I personally believe that people ARE wired that way due to habits. A lot of people just do things. Do they enjoy it? some do, some don't. The basic things is that everyone is different and not everyone follows the "same human formula" no matter how many psychologist may tell you. IF that was the case, we would be able to cure all the "mental sickness" out there, but alas, I don't see that going on.
Anyways. I guess we can conclude on this matter cause we have stumble to a brick steel lined wall. You will be unconvinced on the matter that people are not the same and may like things that you don't (i.e. grinding) while I believe that people are wired differently and some CAN enjoy it while others don't. It is matter of personal fun so to me, it doesn't make any difference if you agree to that person or not. In my case, it was a lot of fun for me at the time and I was willing to shell out money and play it.
In case you never play UO. Everquest was out at the time (my friends called it EverCrack) and I never seem to like it. I think it was lacking the crafting side (mining, gathering materials and such) so never gotten into it.
Plus it is pretty lop sided when you can't get the type of weapons other PvPer has access to (Tanks, Helo, Subs, Nuclear Warheads)
