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As someone who has put too many hours into EVE online to count. I do mundane things in video games because of two different reasons. 1) The reward for doing th

As someone who has put too many hours into EVE online to count. I do mundane things in video games because of two different reasons. 1) The reward for doing the mundane thing is usually very direct and actually pretty decent if you commit to it. For example with enough grinding in EVE you can afford some very fancy spaceships. Or with hours of code raiding in Rust you can steal all of someones stuff by just typing in 4 digit codes for hours. 2) Doing the mundane thing in the game is still a form of escapism from doing the mundane thing in the real world. Except usually the video game isn't hardcore mode. If I don't do it and a die I just respawn. Meatspace doesn't have this luxury. In this case the video game is an escape from existential dread.

paulryanrogers 4y ago
I would second this sentiment. As a teen I loved the action of Privateer and RPGs but found some of the grind tedious. Later as an adult I found certain kinds of grind kind of fun, to a point. Reaching the pay off is key. Things that feel too out of reach or have pay-to-win shortcuts just completely deflate the reward and destroy my motivation. Cheating in MP also ruined it for me. Now I mostly do SP and occasionally cheat there when it feels like the game is getting too grindy or unfair.
kingaillas 4y ago
Haha, I used to do Planetary Interaction in wormhole space, to chill out. It was peaceful, setting up my extractors, harvesting raw materials, then running through various factories to obtain upgrades or finished products. Of course, loading up my cargo and bringing to market was tense... but I never was attacked, probably because I only went to wormholes from hisec space. (The wormhole farming corp I was in maintained various stations but I went with the not-as-lucrative ones accessible from hisec and skipped the low/no sec ones. As I recall, I stopped a few years ago.)

paulryanrogers 4y ago

I would second this sentiment. As a teen I loved the action of Privateer and RPGs but found some of the grind tedious. Later as an adult I found certain kinds of grind kind of fun, to a point. Reaching the pay off is key. Things that feel too out of reach or have pay-to-win shortcuts just completely deflate the reward and destroy my motivation. Cheating in MP also ruined it for me. Now I mostly do SP and occasionally cheat there when it feels like the game is getting too grindy or unfair.

kingaillas 4y ago

Haha, I used to do Planetary Interaction in wormhole space, to chill out. It was peaceful, setting up my extractors, harvesting raw materials, then running through various factories to obtain upgrades or finished products. Of course, loading up my cargo and bringing to market was tense... but I never was attacked, probably because I only went to wormholes from hisec space. (The wormhole farming corp I was in maintained various stations but I went with the not-as-lucrative ones accessible from hisec and skipped the low/no sec ones. As I recall, I stopped a few years ago.)