countless, for sure
i play ~4,5 years now (still dont have the 5 year veteran badge)
every day a few hours; if possible many hours (allods is a good game to do something else beside, watch movies etc)
if not enough time, only doing "minimum" so 20 minutes or something (daily tasks, auctions)
its always a pity when RL is so demanding, there is not enough time to spend on a hobby so you are saturated with this hobby....
so its quite some work,time and effort i put into my level9+items
but this is exactly the point, it feels great i reached this level just by playing the game and nothing else... its a kind of personal achievement
when i read how OP was happy with achieving things by playing, i remembered that awesome feeling
without this feeling something would be missing for me
taking a shortcut (buying with $) always can result in less experience
i really love how this game offers the shortcut with $ without "forcing" the player to do so
this "pay what you want" mentality is awesome
it makes it possible that players donate because they appreciate this game, but they can appreciate it also without donating
you can have everything for free
just play and keep it up
good things come to those who wait
im sure there are ppl who are like ´"hey, AOP could have just instabought all his items and lv9 with $ and saved a lot of time & effort", but as i enjoyed what i did, i dont regret it at all and would do it again if i could choose; only thing i would change would be playing from begin of game which i sadly missed