The root problem here is very simple. You don't seem to understand that Blizzard has NEVER tried to make a REALISTIC game. Realism has never been one of their intents, at all, plain and simple. I'm not even sure why you would think it was.

I'm not going to defend mining in WoW. Boring, no doubt about it. I honestly don't think I would find a more realistic system any less boring though. That's just me. I'm not into sims really. Action, adventure, and story. Outside that, I'm not really interested. If you're into sims though, then MMORPGs are the last place you should be looking.

I agree in part with Siolis.

Blizzard aways put gameplay and fun above realism. And that make very fun games, but too unrealistic and unimmersible, halving the games potential. Games so umplausible as Warcraft 3 (with the stupid town portal and overpowered heros and spells) loses immersibility and sense of playing.

But realism in games has a limit. It is when realism gets above gameplay.

Mining....
Let me tell u a very sad tale. Ive played Dragon Raja for a time. In that game, mining was just using a pickaxe in the hand, then click in the mining job and then to the stone (generally near a mountain). It is a fairly realist way to mine. I wanted to be a miner expert. So I started mining. i clicked in the mine skill then the stone. Failed. then i clicked the skill then the stone... failed. Ive tried again and again until i got 1 piece or the most useless metal in the game. That taked about 10 or 20 tries that made 20 to 30 clicks to each useless metal. Then i tried very hard building me up to get better metals. So 4 hours have passed of endless clicking before I started to get usefull metals. Then i got all stones i mined (had to get 1 by 1 from ground) and sold it all. the money barelly pay me for food to restore my stamina spent by the mining.I continued and then i found myself passing days in a hell of clicks just to get 1 or 2 levels of mining.

That fact dont go just to mining, and dont go just for dragon raja. Fishing, Farm, Make Bread, Craft something... all that jobs requires in most MMORPGS for infinite hours of automatic insane mindless clicks.

In the end i started to use a script program that automated the clicks.

I believe Blizzard just wanted to avoid that. I confess that I would never put such job system in my projects.

If you want some mining freakness, try Dungeon Keeper. Its aways fun to slap the workers to work until they die. That was a great way to mining too :) Want do that 1st person? just possess them.

These are MMOGs.

Yes, there can be a certain level of realism to them, but that's not fun. If you want to consider the node in different terms, simply consider it an abstract for a location which you can dig into the ground and pull up ore. When you "fail", it means you simply cleared out earth that was in the way, but not enough usable ore.

I am considering a complex trade skill system. Normally my ideas end up turning, what are 'side games' for most games into an alternative career path, with it's own quests (albeit relatively boring, but they would help a character build up skill) and skill tree.

However, I should mention that most fantasy worlds are based upon the belief that the 'society' has been around for centuries, if not several millenia. After a certain point, people will have to start mining for ore and the Dwarves would be the ones to do it.

The 'side games' of MMOGs are usually set up for a couple of different reasons:

1) People like to make their own stuff, regardless of the fact that most of the time it s*cks compared to relatively easy to get dropped gear.

2) It's a way to fill time when you want to be in game socializing, but don't feel like actually running around killing stuff or doing flat out nothing.

3) Because sometimes the player crafted stuff allows you to buff up your existing gear and/or stats.

They are not there to be realistic. I don't want to actually learn how to mine, tailor or even go fishing. I want to play a game and occasionally screw off doing stuff that doesn't take much thought, but I still get to work on my character and/or be available for stuff that I want to potentially do.