The XP grind has always been my MMORPG buzzkill. I'm certain that I'm not alone in that assertion but I've always felt particularly strong about it, mainly because I love the idea of MMORPGs so much. There's something inherently fascinating to me about people carrying on secondary lives in vibrant, fully-realized worlds. Hell, it's half the reason why I tried ingesting a few episodes of .hack, despite a violent allergy to most forms of anime. Yet the incessant need for *ahem* hacking out level after level of experience, killing the umpteenth monster in order to watch your experience bar inch imperceptibly towards that next plateau, has always seemed antithetical to the idea of simply existing in a virtual world for a few hours a week.

It's this kind of annoyance that has killed my enjoyment of MMO titles throughout the genre. My affairs with titles such as Anarchy Online, Everquest, Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, and even my once beloved--and now uninstalled--City of Heroes have all ultimately ended because (among other reasons) I never felt like I was getting anywhere.

Enter World of Warcraft. With this game, I find myself in an entirely new grind-related quandary. Unlike many of my co-workers, I'm still below level 40--that mythic plateau of achievement that marks the truly dedicated WoW-er. In fact, my dwarf hunter is currently hovering halfway towards level 37. And that's my trouble.

As is often the case in real life, the problem begins and ends with finances. In short, I'm broke. Well not broke, really; I currently have about 50 gold to my name. Yet despite my considerable efforts--cutting a swath of skinned animal death through Stranglethorn Vale that would cause the president of the SPCA to faint; desperately sprinting to each freshly killed corpse when grouping with others, in the vain hope of grabbing every sellable iota of vendor trash; completely cutting myself off from learning new skills for at least my previous six levels; etc.--I'm still a full forty gold shy of the 90 required to purchase a mount at the level 40 milestone. And I want that mount. Bad.

I complain to guild mates. I complain to co-workers. I even complain to my wife, who simply asks me to move my head out of the way of the TV so she can watch the latest episode of Charmed. A few kind souls, both in the office and in my guild, have offered to loan me the money should I fall short upon reaching level 40. Though the offers are tempting, I feel obligated to turn them down, simply because I want to feel like I've earned the mount. Yet, for each hundred XP I earn, I grow more and more anxious that, when the level odometer turns over to 40, I'll be woefully short of my financial goal, stuck relying on my hunter's Aspect of the Cheetah to get me around.

And therein lies the rub. In previous MMORPGs, we've all complained about the XP grind and how, as you progress further up the experience ladder, the game experience seems to slow down and you never feel like you're getting anywhere. Each time I log onto WoW, on the other hand, I feel exactly the opposite; like I’m making too much progress for comfort, and that my rapidly accruing experience total is far exceeding my earnings capabilities. With WoW, I find myself in a unique situation: A willing slave to the grind. I find myself wishing for a bit less experience per kill (and a bit more silver for each corpse drop). I find myself longing to slow down and explore a bit more, hoping to find the freshly killed un-skinned animal corpses left behind by other players, a perfect opportunity to gather some leather goods for sale, without racking up pesky XP.

This problem is partially tied to Azeroth's rapidly evolving economy. The auction houses aren't necessarily the bargain bins they used to be, in my experience. Just a few weeks ago I could easily sell sets of green leather armor for 50-60 silver or more apiece. Yet when I logged on last night, I found three sets of the exact same armor returned to me via mail; not one of them had sold at auction. It's capitalism at its finest, and most frustrating: As competition increases, prices go down and profits decrease. So you head back outside and grind away.

In the end, grinding exists in WoW as a necessary evil. At the same time, it's rare to ever feel you aren't making substantial progress in the game. Among all the title's many achievements, WoW has done something I previously thought would be impossible to accomplish: Turned the XP grind on its head. That said, my in-game financial woes bring to mind the old adage:

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.