Re:The trolls hath entered gamasutra (Score 1)

I think Achoi pretty much nailed it on the head in his second sentence. Blizzard's goal with WoW is to make money. The thing that separates WoW from their other creations (and every game the Gamasutra article mentions) is the monthly fee. Once you set up a system in which the developer's interest is to keep you playing as long as possible, everything else in the article follows from that.

This is why you get quests like "Go kill 25 Trolls and 20 Orcs." And when you come back to turn that quest in you get "Now go kill 25 Orcs and 20 Trolls." Blizzard's ultimate goal is to keep you playing as long as possible. They don't care what level you get to in that time or what PVP rank you attain. They're just interested in that monthly fee. You can complain that the Honor System rewards people who play 10+ hours per day month after month, but seriously folks, WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?

In the end, the Gamasutra article points out several of the flaws in WoW, but it never advocates the correct solution. As gamers, you have to vote with your dollars, because it's the only thing that matters. Stop griping about it and simply DON'T PLAY games that have a monthly fee. Reject this pricing model that inevitably leads to grind-based leveling treadmills.