Timesink

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A timesink is a term used to describe activities that consume a lot of time. It is a variant of the more commonly used term "time drain."

In massively multiplayer online role-playing games, the term is used disparagingly to describe a simplistic and time-consuming aspect of gameplay that was possibly designed as a thinly veiled attempt to keep players playing longer, especially in the case of limited-time trial accounts.

1 Reactions
2 Examples
3 Alternative explanation
4 External links

[edit] Reactions

Boring and lengthy parts of gameplay are merely an annoyance when found in most games, but in MMORPGs where players are paying for the time to play, they become controversial. Game designers must be prudent in balancing efforts to produce both involving gameplay and the length of content that players expect.

[edit] Examples

Fights where the player only has to press the same attack-button repeatedly (ad absurdum).

Fights including only press of one attack-button and watching automated fight (could be 30 minutes or more in case of Boss monster/mob).

Quests that require the player to run a long distance (long time) to deliver an item (usually for NPC).

Collecting large numbers of items (such as asteroid mining in space-themed MMORPGs).

Slow nature of regenerating lost life and mana, usually forcing the player to sit and wait before rejoining a battle. This is called "downtime" and is a component of MMORPG's that is heavily criticized.

Levelling by gaining experience points (XP) which usually involves taking lots of quests or killing lots of monsters. This can become frustrating if certain levels are required.

Not very fast support from dungeon masters or GM.

Paying for time spent in MMORPG by real money which implicates need of spending vast amount of time in its virtual world.

[edit] Alternative explanation

Use of timesink to slow down progress of player can be used also to help regenerate resources or monsters in game world. Regeneration is needed to keep certain amount of available game tasks for other players.

For it also includes making players more fragile (death prone), players avoid attacking and killing monsters. This may reduce amount of monsters in need of reborn (respawned) for other players.