My Blood-Elf rogue is an inch from level 20. Yesterday, she traveled from the blood elf city to the undead city to the orc city (Ogrammar) to Crossroads to Ratchet just so I could sit on a pirate ship and grind my lockpicking from 1 to 95. As I sat there, clicking on chest after chest for forty minutes I thought ‘This is why I hate World of Warcraft.’

True, single player RPGs can be grindtastic. I’ve heard Japanese RPGs can be especially demanding, though I’m somewhat ignorant of them.

I also don’t care for profession grinding. I was once able to level a blacksmith/miner who managed to always have gear appropriate for her level, but I’d say that meant that at least a quarter of my play time was devoted to the career. There’s a reason many guides suggest you just pick a gatherer profession and then switch to blacksmithing, leatherworking, or tailoring when you hit high levels. Worse, while I managed to get gear appropriate for my level, it was never as good as what could be found in raids.

My biggest gripe with WoW and other MMORPGs is that I never feel as though I’m winning. I can obsessively play Diablo because I do get that winning sensation. Diablo is blatant in its carrot-and-stick approach, but it works because I crave that feeling of achievement. In WoW, the feeling is that you’ll achieve something… soon. That soon is always on the edge of your horizon, but you never reach it.

Which is why I have my World of Warcraft cycle. I play for hours a day until my toon reaches high level and then I sort of falter off. The game stops appealing to me so I put it aside for a week, which becomes a month, which becomes five months. Then I log on and notice my guild has kicked me out, so I reroll another toon and start again.

This will be the first time I've played a Horde and or with Wrath of the Lich King installed.

On the stack:
Myst: Exile – Never finished it and recently found it gathering dust in my CD holder
Abe’s Odysee – Picked this up but never played it
Giants Citizen Kabuto – The same
Trine - Waiting for more reviews before I buy it. Can anyone comment?
Mirror’s Edge – I have a friend who played this and said she’d give it to me a month ago.