Let’s say it’s taking me about 5-6 hours per level in Rift and that’s if I concentrate.  I find it extremely difficult to set myself up on a goal and continue to completion before something else catches my eye.  The eye catches are the following:

• harvesting nodes:  I get to one, see another, see another, etc…
• carnage quests: these are kill X quests that start when you kill the first enemy type.  There are 20-40 per zone from what I’ve seen
• main quests: there are only 3-4 active at any given time, sometimes only 1.  It’s the driver to move through the zone often
• rifts: these pop up (or I summon them) for a 5 minute battle.
• random quests: these come from drops or items on the ground, they make you move around the map.
• protect from invasions: at specific spots on the map are hubs that you use to defend against invasions.  sort of like rifts but without the quest mechanics.
• artifacts: the shiny white spots that you collect to fill out, uh, collections
• achievements: sometimes you just see a weird spot and know there’s an achievement, like jumping from waterfalls
• exploration: the vistas look amazing. I like to find the highest point around and look around

All of these are happening all the time.  It makes it hard to just do one thing and then get to the next, as most themeparks do.  WoW and TOR are these types of games.  I remember doing 85 to 90 recently and I think there were a dozen choices total that I had to make.  I make more than a dozen choices per hour in Rift.

Though the content isn’t necessarily innovative, it makes it continually fresh because it’s given out in various types and amounts.  It sure does make the time much more fun than it could be and let’s Trion make leveling take as long as it does.  Now to go smash some giant bone golems.