As the creator of a MMO, I can tell you it's absolutely intentional. Our initial design document had the word "grinding" it in many times; I'm sure theirs did too.
If you want people to sink hundreds of hours into a game, the gameplay is going to include a LOT of repetition. The tricky part is to keep it fun and engaging despite this.
"If you want people to sink hundreds of hours into a game, the gameplay is going to include a LOT of repetition."
Which is probably why I find it difficult to play most video games as I quickly get bored at any task that involves mindless/near-mindless repetition.
I also find it difficult to muster much interest in being involved in working on these kinds of projects because I find it sad that many people's pursuit of distraction/passtime would be something that involves massive repetition (work) with little tangible benefit.
I look forward to seeing MMORPGs developed that require a far greater degree of creativity and open-endedness in them.
If a design document of mine had the word "grinding" it in many times, I'd do something else instead.
Another way to make people sink hundreds of hours into a game is to make it play well competitively. It's surprising that one of the prime examples of this (StarCraft) comes from the same company as WoW.
There's a fair amount of rote and practice involved in becoming good at StarCraft. The "grinding" in WoW can also lead to subtle and gradual improvement at the game that makes you better at it.
MMORPGs and RTSs aren't directly comparable. Due to nature of the genre there's no long-term reward possible in RTSs outside of self-improvement, whereas this is generally the focus of RPGs, massive and online or not.
I doubt you can extrapolate from your experiences on a single MMORPG to the industry as a whole. Grind may well be intentional in your case, or in WoW; but in (many) other MMORPGs, the designers put a lot of work into reducing grind. Grind is always a double-edged sword, and rather than focus on grinding for grinding's sake, I recommend you focus on creating a compelling gaming experience first; worry about metastructure when you've managed to do that.
I never said I focused on grinding for grinding's sake.
Our game is a parody, and our main focus is on creating a universe that is funny and engaging. It would simply be bad game design if we didn't recognize that grinding is part of the MMORPG experience.
You obivously know this because you used the word "reducing" when referring to it.
If you want people to sink hundreds of hours into a game, the gameplay is going to include a LOT of repetition. The tricky part is to keep it fun and engaging despite this.