It has to do with the way SOE retained it's subscribers.
SOE had to think, ok we got all these people. How do we keep them?!
Lets make everything a time sink! This will keep people playing long hours trying to get to X level or Y piece of loot.
Their system of time sinks worked, until WoW.
Blizzard came along and asked the same questions as SOE. How can we attract and keep potential subscribers?
They came up with a different (better?) answer to that question. Simply, make everything FUN!
Make every single aspect of the game fun and entertaining. Create goals for the players and show them how to achieve them. Replace time sinks with fun interactive game play.
Players went from EQ where it would take 30 minutes just to make a group to WoW where they could start a quest and complete it in 30 minutes.
In two words: Instant Gratification
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