Quote:Upon further reflection, I may have stumbled upon something here. Most online games are now implementing fees to play, which means that grind (from a business perspective) is a GOOD thing. You want to keep players playing (but not necessarily happy) as long as possible. Guild Wars, on the other hand, is a one-time fee, followed by one-time-fee expansions (which are not necessary to continue playing competitively--I doubt Monk primaries will ever be supplanted. The result would throw balance out the window), which means that Arena.net (again, from a business perspective) wants to keep their customers loyal and happy rather than merely engaged.
It is no secret that MMOGs incorporate grinding intentionally to get players to continue subscribing for a long time without the dev team having to create new content as fast as the players finish it (which of course, would be virtually impossible without grinding). Of course, games that make you buy expansions in order to avoid running out of content are a different sort of trap. I'd be willing to pay $100 up front for a game with mediocre graphics, if I were confident that it would offer the type of replay value I got from Diablo without having to fork out additional money on a monthly or bi-yearly basis. Obviously trying to design a game like that is no safe bet at success. From a business perspective, making an Everquest clone is just a lot safer (although market oversaturation may change that in a hurry).