When did level grinding become a thing in computer games?

[xiphias]

So, Lis is grinding away at a game she's playing and was wondering -- when did grinding levels become a thing that can be done? You need to have a situation in which you become more powerful as you play, by levelling up, getting better equipment, practicing skills, or whatever, and you need to have the ability to replay lower levels so that you CAN keep doing things to level up.

Poking around on TV Tropes and Wikipedia, I'm seeing suggestions that the earliest grindable games was possibly WIZARDRY, in 1981. BARD'S TALE in 1985 and HERO'S QUEST/QUEST FOR GLORY in 1989 would be other early examples. But the roguelike games might be even a couple years earlier.

Can anyone think of anything earlier for grindability?

Comments

[navrins]

What I wonder is *why* it became a thing. Isn't the point of playing a game supposed to be to have fun, not to do the same dull repetitive thing over and over? There are some games where you get more powerful as you play and it *is* fun, but I don't think "grind" is usually used to describe that.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine other than that we're dealing with a single phenomenon with multiple names. "Grinding" is the name used by people who hate the process, and some other word is used for the same process by people who like it.

[rosefox]

Dungeons & Dragons, 1974.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

That was also suggested over on Facebook, where I crossposted this. But I don't feel that level grinding in the same sense is really part of tabletop RPGs. It could be done -- a DM could continually roll on the Wandering Monster Table to create underpowered monsters for the players to easily slaughter. But I don't see DMs doing so. A good DM would want to have some sort of progression of a plot, and a bad DM would just want to slaughter the party.

[rosefox]

Ah, but the mediocre GM doesn't know how to plot very well and in the meantime might just kind of throw encounters at you to see what sticks. In my experience.

[mbarr.livejournal.com]

I do remember grinding on Hero's Quest, so you could actually accomplish certain things. But they didn't have "lower levels", it was just part of the game itself / that "level".

Sometimes it's fun to just kill things, and not be bored about it.

Everything doesn't have to be a Zelda Dungeon...

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

When I play QUEST FOR GLORY straight through, all five games, transferring my character (which I do every couple of years or so), I grind a lot, because I WANT to.

I start QUEST FOR GLORY 1/HERO'S QUEST with a magic thief with 5 points in magic and parrying. A thief can't parry in combat, but can level parrying up by practicing against the fencing master in the castle.

And I grind until I max every single skill and spell there is in the game.

In QFG 2, I import as a thief, as expected, but skip most of the thief quests, because I'm going for max skills, not max score. However, I can still do all the magic-user quests and most of the fighter quests, because they're based on having the skills, not the class affiliation. The only thing I can't do is join the Eternal Order of Fighters. And by skipping the thief quests, I can switch class to Paladin at the end of the game. But I'm a Paladin with lockpicking, and the ability to make the thief sign...

In QFG 3, I play as a paladin, because, honestly, QFG 3 is poorly-designed for any other class. It's all about learning paladin stuff, and there are almost no specific things for thieves and magic-users to do, and paladins can do every fighter quest. So skipping the thief quests in QFG 2 makes QFG 3 much more enjoyable.

In QFG 4, I can do all the Paladin quests AND all the Thief quests, which is amusing, and almost all the Magic User quests.

And then, in QFG 5, I can become the Chief Thief, be offered the kingship, turn it down in favor of Elsa in order to be a better paladin -- AND simultaneously marry every single marriageable character other than Katrina (because you have to choose between saving Erana and Katrina anyway).

And in every single game, I grind every single skill to the max level (although I sometimes get bored before finishing grinding every spell).