Quote:
Quite frankly, I believe you've created a false dichotomy. According to you either love writing as this pure Platonic ideal or you're a mercenary for arbitrary numbers that have no value outside of this website. I think most of us fall somewhere in between. No matter what you do, you like to have some kind of positive reinforcement. Does this make us attention grubbing whores? Perhaps to some extent, but no more so than most aspects of life. Writing is a means of communication. I'd rather write on Althanas than on a notepad that I leave in my closet for some important non-EXP reasons.
1) I know somebody else read what I wrote.
2) I know what someone else thinks.
Does that make me a bad person. Perhaps. Does it make Althanas a mutual gratification society? Perhaps. Are these the worst things in the world, probably not.
Additionally, keep in mind that EXP is the measure of character progress and GP is the most effective way to obtain goods. I don't necessarily need ten tons of EXP per quest or a million GP, but I do like to get enough so that my skill sets can keep up with the stories.
This is the kind of point I like to see made, because for the most part it's correct. My general thought is that Althanas should exist in some sort of creative tension between writing for writing's sake and writing for experience and character improvement.