The reason why I lost interest in RuneScape is because the game was going from a sort of of socialist economy, where you work and get paid for your work, into a more capitalist one where you spend a bunch of up-front money to make passive income. Eventually the amount of passive income you get just dwarfs playing the actual game and it's like "why bother?" All you do is log in, collect your Kingdom, then collect your Ships, Load up your machines, harvest your animals, do your daily and that's it. No gameplay. The most fun I had playing the game was actually earning progress in the game rather than having it handed to me, not roleplaying as a fucking landlord. It's kind of insidious how the game slowly turned into a lord simulator. I'm thinking of all the features which basically boil down to "You're the boss, make these people do work for you and you'll get free money/xp while you're away." How long until the MC becomes a slave owner?
Nah the core gameplay was fine, I knew what I was getting into. I was never in it for the luck-based rewards, I just like working slowly towards a grand goal.
It's rewarding to see something so seemingly impossible to obtain and then working hard to achieve it like a week later. Really helps you feel less impotent.
Of course all that gets taken away once you have other people doing the work for you. Now instead of being free to achieve the impossible, you're enslaved into a system of dailies and manageering.
Buddy that's a skinner box. You're not thinking about the activity; you're thinking about an increasingly distant reward. You just described in a first-person perspective the definition of a Skinner Box. I'm not judging. I've played MMOs too.
There's no reward in maxing skills except the journey itself. It's not like real life where you put work into something and have something at the end. When you complete a game's progression, that's it. The game's over. You can't play any more. The problem is with real life is that I can't pour myself 100% into anything. Capitalism just doesn't allow that to happen, but in games I can. I guess that's why I find them such an appealing fantasy.
But in the end, the same empty truth remains: Nothing I do in a game is meaningful. It's little more than appeasing a need which I simply can't fulfil in real life. I hate it. I desire for liberation.