Making Personal Things

"Creating something personal, even of moderate quality, has a different kind of appeal to consuming something made by others, even of a high quality."

Clay Shirky

I think this is what drives every hardcore RPG player.
There is something squirreled away behind our avarice for shiny items and gold, just tucked next to the pursuit of the max level and ever so slightly occluded by the compulsion to pwn n00bs is the need to create something personal. If you just wanted to pwn n00bs you could play CoD or Halo, if you just wanted shiny things you could play bejeweled, it's something more than just having the perfect THING. It's the feeling that you've built the thing, it's YOUR thing and you made it from scratch.