Time sink

On 11/25/2006 Tobold asked what was Your worst World of Warcraft decision?

I commented that starting out on a pvp server was my worst decision. But that got me to thinking about the things I regret about this game.

I like playing WoW. If you could see my time played (which I refuse to look at!) you'd say I LOVE playing WoW.

One of the things I regret is the immense amount of time I've spent in-game. And its seeped out of game with this blog and reading the forums, etc.

What I can't seem to get a grasp on is how is it so easy to lose so many hours in this fantasy world.

Over my holiday vacation, I didn't even raid much yet I still spent a lot of time leveling, crafting, farming, pvping and beta "testing".

As many have said this is an endless game. There is always a better item to obtain, alts to level, instances to conquer, ranks to hit.

What is it about WoW that makes a time sink appealing or at least transparent until its too late?

From my standpoint I feel like I really can't get anything done in an hour's time. If you want to pvp, you have to wait in a queue for at least an hour before you kill one opponent. If you want to instance (is that a verb?) you may wait for an hour to get a group started. And raiding really isn't all that better, if you want to raid you have to wait at least 15-30 minutes for the raid to assemble and then you're looking at 2-4 hours raiding. If you want to craft you'll either find yourself farming for the materials or farming for the gold to buy the materials. If you want to hit 60 you have to spend more than one or two hours here or there, or you'll be like the player who has played since Dec 2004 and still hasn't hit 60. And let's not talk about trying to get reputation rewards!

Is this why we embrace the time sink?