Feeling Defeated

[Urthdigger]

I give you a tip of the hat good sir, very well done!

This game was literally just a skinner box when it started. No content. Only grinding. So I assume steering from that until after 2.0 is hard. However, that does not excuse the new end game content that is a ridiculous waste of time.

Grinding does not equal a skinner box. Whether something is a skinner box or not has nothing to do with how much time it takes, or the rate of effort towards the reward. I'd actually argue that when the game came out, it FAILED at being a skinner box, since the large number of people who quit says that it didn't do a very good job of conditioning the players to stay glued to the game.

[Ventus]

Grinding does not equal a skinner box. Whether something is a skinner box or not has nothing to do with how much time it takes, or the rate of effort towards the reward. I'd actually argue that when the game came out, it FAILED at being a skinner box, since the large number of people who quit says that it didn't do a very good job of conditioning the players to stay glued to the game.

You're contradicting yourself. You claimed leves and questing were aspects of a skinner box, the core of this game when it came out and thus part of the grind. If you watched the video hulan posted it made a good comparison of diablo's reward system to skinner boxes. Players will go on quest (leve) kill mob get loot and reward and level up to feel progression. They are fooled into repeating the same task long beyond monotony and thus are trapped in a skinner box.

Perhaps you are confused on the definition

[Urthdigger]

You're contradicting yourself. You claimed leves and questing were aspects of a skinner box, the core of this game when it came out and thus part of the grind. If you watched the video hulan posted it made a good comparison of diablo's reward system to skinner boxes. Players will go on quest (leve) kill mob get loot and reward and level up to feel progression. They are fooled into repeating the same task long beyond monotony and thus are trapped in a skinner box.

Perhaps you are confused on the definition

Actually, I think I just misread your prior post. Grinding (Or, more precisely, the way the level curve works in games) IS an example of operant conditioning, because as the individual is more conditioned they can taper off the reward rate (the level gain) slowly until it hits the point of monotony, without reducing motivation. I was saying that how "Grindy" it is (How much you need to grind in the first place before we even consider the level curve) doesn't have to do with whether it's conditioning or not. Both FFXI and WoW employ conditioning in their level curves, even though we can all agree WoW is a lot less "grindy" than FFXI was.