Behind the Curtain: What keeps you going?

This week, I have been mostly killing Baron Rivendare. I'm now sitting with 65 kills under my belt, with no Deathcharger to show for it. We are not amused, and are now convinced that Blizzard hates us. Precious. Sss.

I have the run down to a science now – dodge one pack of mobs, step aside from that pat, kill this group, spank the boss, rinse and repeat. Then repeat it again, and again, and again, and again, and again. I'm sure you get the idea.

I was talking with one of my colleagues at my 'real' job just the other day, when he asked me if I had anything planned for the evening. I started to plan my response in my head, trying to come up with an easy way to translate, in non-gamer terms, what I'd been doing with my time of late. I ended up going with, "Not much" because I just couldn't figure out how to explain it without taking half an hour.

It got me to thinking about what I'd been doing with my time. Was one mount really worth all the time I'd put in? That time, fact fans, is currently pushing 24 hour's worth. I couldn't help but ask myself if I'd actually been having fun all that time?

What is is about something like a shiny, rare drop that brings out the obsessive side in people? Aside from a quick visit to Black Temple to celebrate my guild's second birthday ('sup guys) every time I've logged in to World of Warcraft over the last week, I've been farming for Deathcharger.

Sad, no?

At the risk of repeating myself, I started thinking about fun again. Not just fun though, but about what keeps us going when our games stop being fun. Repeatedly running through an instance 20 levels below me, several times per night, again and again has most definitely not been fun. Things would have been different if the bloody horse had dropped, obviously.

We've all been there – the umpteenth run of *insert hated instance here*, and *insert coveted item here* simply refuses to drop. What is it that keeps us going at that point, at the times where the RNG just doesn't want to give us a break?

Is it the promise of loot, a material reward that keeps us going, keeps us pushing through the hard times, the times where you just want to give up, or the times you ask yourself why you're putting yourself though this – if you wanted to hurt this badly, why not just go play Star Wars Galaxies?

Relax, that bit about Galaxies was a joke. Maybe. I've lasted well this time around. It helps that I've made some good friends and found a great guild. Discovering an aptitude for tanking didn't go amiss either.


So, today's question is this – what keeps you going? When you can feel burnout creeping up on you, or you're sick of loot not dropping and PUGs turning into idiot-fests, what stops you from taking a break and playing something else? Do you even have something to keep you going? Are you a nomad, jumping ship whenever a game starts to bore you?

Discuss.