Hydraxian Waterlords vs. Mass Effect 2

I like getting achievements in WoW, and collecting recipes. So running Molten Core is productive in two ways, working towards an exalted reputation (with achievement) and having a shot at some of the more obscure engineering recipes.

One thing that often gets lost in my MMO playing, though, is how much time it takes to reach some of the more obscure goals in the game. If I only ran MC with my wife (and there usually aren't many groups for it) it would take me roughly 20-25 runs to max out my rep, and a similar number of attempts to be sure I got the engineering recipes. Duoing MC takes a good three or four hours, so that's a seventy-five hour investment.

The most time-consuming WoW achievement? Hardly. Longer than any single-player game? Yes, in fact longer than almost any non-RPG by a factor of five or ten. It's also more time than it would take to get your fill of almost any non-MMO multiplayer game. I loved both Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead (and seemingly played them for months) but I'm still pretty sure I've spent less than seventy-five hours in either game.

If you play WoW all the time, seventy-five hours for an achievement and a few recipes doesn't seem so bad. But in a world where you haven't yet played through Mass Effect 2 (or two dozen other great single-player games) it seems like an obscenity.

So for now I've decided to stay away from the Hydraxian Waterlords achievements and that whole ... category of time-intensive, functionally useless WoW achievements that I really, really want.