Add new comment

Ahaha, what a fitting comparison.

So, a game is a "race" that would require any kind of "effort" and "will" other than "time invested"? It does not. If you were to win your race by simply sitting on your butt 5 hours a day pressing your left mouse button, yeah, you would be good at "racing" a game. If someone else would pay a third person to sit there for him because all he cares about is getting through the five miles as fast as possible, it's his problem and it does not lessen your mighty "achievement". Well, not unless you think you are so uber because you made five miles.

Humour and your comparison aside, no, we are not talking professional sports here, and there is no inherent competition ethic behind levelling in an MMO. You want to claim it is "just a game", deal with the downsides. But if you want to make it serious business and have it "prove you are good at racing five miles", deal with the downsides too. Often enough in sports the winners have the best financial backing and can concentrate on the quintessence of the sport, without dealing with unwanted side tasks. To put it even more clear in game-related terms: If I want to be good at skill-based PvP, I'd better concentrate on PvPing and not on whacking 30/30 mindless fozzles to level up or farming crap for my PvE epic mount. No, having paid real money for my epic mount that I can use to get fastest from A to B in PvP to waste people does not mean I'm "good at playing the game". It means I can "enjoy what I like about the game without dealing with the useless and boring timesink crap".