Tom Insam

Wasting my time

RPGs are many things, but they are almost never hard. As I realized in childhood, the vast majority of RPG challenges can be defeated simply by putting in time. RPGs reward patience, not skill. Almost never is the player required to work hard - only the characters need improve.

...

[..] when I finally had all 160 emblems the game offered, I knew I'd crossed a milestone. I, not Sonic, had improved until I could pass these challenges. I had developed actual skills, even if they were objectively useless ones.

-- Doctor Professor, Awesome By Proxy: Addicted to Fake Achievement

I read this a while ago. It bothered me then. Still bothers me now. Not that I've even logged into World of Warcraft in weeks, but certainly there's nothing challenging in that game (bar the absolute tip of end-game content) that can't be surmounted by doing easier things until the previously-challenging stuff is also easy.

Of course, I mainly consider Warcraft to be a chat client with some pretty pictures nailed to it, so there may reasons left to play.