Quote Originally Posted by Swishytail View Post
I have found myself playing significantly less as of late, mainly due to the OP's reasons. No, I don't expect the game to be perfect, or cater to me specifically. I've played MMO's for a very long time, I know how it goes. I will say, however, a game like FFXI for example had a certain "thing", or a hook if you will, that kept me playing for 8 years. It's hard to explain, but with XI I couldn't wait to get off work/out of school/whatever and rush home and log in.
That is called "Time Required". In a game where you need to keep up with your friends and in which doing anything at all requires vast amounts of time either preparing for it or repeating content endlessly in order to acquire something, you feel pressured to not waste even a moment of your time doing anything else other than working for that one particular goal that will take forever to accomplish. Whereas if you know you will get there even if you slow down a little you will certainly take your time to play another, spout idleness at your friends or finish your homework.