Me (a Disciple) and a new friend (a Dread Knight) were unable to tackle the quest we were trying. We were out matched and since we couldn't find anyone else to join us we switched locations. We invaded a dungeon called Hilsbury Manor, which was still a challenge but we could take it without fear of death every fight. We located a hidden NPC via the one quest we found outside and he gave us three quests. These were to go to the library and find pages 1 through 3 for three different books, one for each quest. We fought our way over to the library. This is where things started to go wrong.
The room is full of enemies that respawn. There is one named that spawned every two minutes or so. There are books that spawn on the floor and you can use to loot a single page from it. They spawn VERY slowly, several times we stood in the cleared room waiting for them to spawn. When you loot one, a mob spawns and attacks you. Then there's what you looted, you get a random one of the pages, including ones you already have. There also seems to be a tendency for the book that started with a V to loot more often, I have 8 page 1's from it. Sometimes, just to insult you, you might loot a severed arm... or leg... I was rewarded with a head once. Don't sound too bad yet? Between the two of us, we spent 2 hours in that room alone... and he didn't even get his last page. I got all of mine... somehow. My bags were full... all 158 slots of space I have. We got that much loot, and both of us got two levels in there. Two levels... when each level takes 337467 or so xp to get and each mob rewards 800 or so xp. The part that is most annoying? Only one of the rewards was good, but at least it's REALLY good.
So, why does this happen? MMOs are all notorious for their various time sinks. Why do they all have them? Because MMOs are different from regular games. Regular games you buy them, and that's the main thing developers care about. They've gotten your money, they might eek a bit more out from DLC but that's it. MMOs want you to keep playing so that they get your monthly subscription. Basicallly, you need to play and keep playing. Regular game developers just need you to be happy enough to buy the sequel. MMOs want you to come and stay. So they eat up your time. They have massive grinds so that you waste away and keep playing just to get to the next level, or purchase that next reward.
That takes a rather greedy view towards grinds, but it is probably true in most cases to some degree. There is another side to it; if we're here to stay, we want something to do. In my example here, this is to increase the ride time to the level cap. But what to do when you reach that cap? That's when you can rest from the grand level grind and then begins every other grind that you've been putting aside until now (or at least that's how I roll). While they may be largely bait to keep you playing and paying, they also provide us the player with the goals and accomplishments to make continuing playing worth it.
MMO Genie says, "Get the hell off and eat some FOOD!"
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