As a new player myself, I just want to share some of my thoughts, which is probably different from what many people are suggesting.

When I started in January, I was planning to focus on MSQ to reach ShB in a reasonable amount of time - reading every quest text to understand the story lines without rushing through the leveling process. It was when I got into the level 50 quests in AAR, I realized that if I just do these MSQs, I would quit in a week.

So at that point, I changed my approach, and started poking around other non-MSQ things in the game, whatever raises my curiosity. MSQ became the sort of thing to do on the side, "I'll do MSQ or run that MSQ dungeon if I have time today." Granted, it took longer, in calendar days, to finish AAR, but the process was a lot less excruciating for me.

I understand what worked for me may not work for others. I was playing the game for the story (while looking pretty), not for end game, not for gear, and not for collecting things. But, this is just my 2 cents - I need that feeling of "being in control" when playing a game, not the other way around.