What Exactly Is Wrong With World Of Warcraft?

[Enigmers]

I found the combat to be pretty lame, I liked Diablo's style of combat, or Final Fantasy's, but WoW tries to do something in between that doesn't really do it for me. It's not quite action but not quite turn-based.

It seems like a common complaint in this thread is that the game is addictive and people end up playing it too much. Thats like blaming Mc Donalds for making a sandwich so tasty you eat it for every meal and then get fat. The keyword is self-control people. If you have none then MMO's, or videogames in general probably aren't for you.

Don't blame a game company because you (or your friends) can't exercise self-control and put a videogame before your real life.

I have a job, go to school, have a great social life and play WoW in a high end raiding guild. I've never canceled real life plans for the game and I only play in my free time. If you let WoW consume your life thats YOUR fault, not the games.

You are an awesome person. Thank you.

 

[TheFacelessOne]

It's incredibly, incredibly boring.

Yeah, that's my argument.

When I've played it (and I've done many free trials as every race, save Draenei and Blood Elf, not available in trial) and I got bored around the same level, 9-10. I found no point of it. I was left wondering, "Okay...what now?" But I think that with every MMO. Maybe I just dislike MMOs in general, but others, I've enjoyed them more than WOW. Just...that's just it.

 

[Koloman Varady]

A lot of my friends play World of Warcraft and last year I gave it a go for a few months to play with 'em but I wasn't at all impressed. Now, do realize I love Guild Wars and basically it was me complainin to my friends "Gosh, I sure this game was more like Guild Wars" but here are were my complaints.

The game is ugly. Let's not lie to ourselves. The game is ugly. Cartoony... sure. There's not much excuse for it... I mean, no crying about spilled milk, sure, the game is as it is but there are much better looking games from that time period that also run on quite reasonable computers specs. The game's ugliness is a fault, unless you happen to really like that sort of artwork. I don't get you then. I've played on a MUD for a number of years, so graphics ain't everything but if something's an eyesore then that's worse than having to use your imagination in my book. Hell, it ain't until Lich King where you don't look like a rainbow vomited on you. A couple levels in Burning Crusade, I found myself wearing black pants, blue chestplate, red gloves, and green shoulder pads. And I wore this because....

... there's no choice. Beyond the character creator, there's not much mechanics wise (in PvE, PvP in games usually takes a lil' more thinking outside the box I'd say... but I've heard it countlessly reiterated that World of Warcraft is a PvE game) that exactly calls for your imagination or creativity. My build's predetermined. I learned how to build my character by reading on elitistjerks. The buttons I press in combat are predetermined. Raiding comes down to reading Wiki pages on bosses and watching YouTube videos of other people doing it so that you can repeat what they did three times a week. It's got all the excitement of playing the same song over and over on Guitar Hero (which, to be fair, if you like the song, is just fine but still pretty.. uhh, repetitive). My equipment is predetermined. I look like everyone else who had the same loot drops as I did. Of course not everyone has the same loot drops...

... because the game treats loot as motivation (and this, to be honest, I think is a very tired and antiquated attitude. Better stats is not at all rewarding enough for me, as a person). There is a trap in thinking that better loot should reward you for doing anything. In World of Warcraft better loot is the reward for doing anything - any type of PvP or PvE you do, you will get loot for it. Even if it's just an achievement, if it's hard enough it'll have loot attached. No offense, but that strikes me as ridiculously shallow and unfun. It's shallow because I've found in Guild Wars I don't need better stats on the horizon to motivate me or others even. I'm fine doin a lil' grind if I'm in the mood for it if it's something I want (like a fancier armour set with the exact same stats). The difference between doing something because I want to and doing something because I have to is the difference between play and work. But because I need better stats to play with people who are playing current content...

....I grind. I grind gold. I grind rep. Just like I grinded emblems. Just like I grinded XP (sidetrack - this oddly enough is an entire weeks/months long timesink that's completely divorced from the actual game that most people play). And all so that one day I can come and either grind raids for loot drops so I can keep up with the Joneses. If I want to try something else (maybe switch up characters or try PvP) that's just a whole new beginning to an entirely different grind that only has loot rewards waiting for you. And because loot rewards have to be always out of reach because otherwise the game thinks you will immediately lose interest...

... everything takes forever to do. You have a friend that plays World of Warcraft and won't stop talking about? Hell, you wanna know what's so fun and join up? Man, try counting the weeks that it'll take you to hit max level. Then count the number of weeks to get geared up so you can find a raid to take you on. Then count the number of weeks it'll take to get geared up to go raid current content (nevermind if your friend happens to be in one of the top guilds anyway). The staggering amount of timesink just to start a new character or collect PvP equipment sets or try anything that you haven't been grinding towards is insulting. I don't give a bad movie 2 hours of my time but World of Warcraft asks you to jump through weeks of hoops constantly. But one day, after getting the gear, making the contacts, running the raids, after hundreds of hours of playtime I can....

... have an ugly character that's a terrible eyesore will be only given more new mandatory grinding dull tasks next patch.

Sure, people are fun but, let's not kid ourselves, that's not at all unique to World of Warcraft, people are fun no matter what game you play.

Maybe I just don't get it but that's my take on it. I don't like World of Warcraft as a game but lots of people do. Turns out even more people like Farmville though so, I dunno, I guess the future of gaming is doomed.

 

[PrimoThePro]

It's overrated...
It's a waste of time!
No seriously, I found it repetitive, and therefore highly boring. Collect 15 of this, return, now collect 13 of this! WHAT FUN!

 

[Alon Shechter]

It's incredibly, incredibly boring.

I played it non-stop for 3 fucking weeks, and not a single thing in it, the community, the mechanics, the art design, or the backstory managed to engage me in the slightest. Rarely, if ever, does that happen.

I respect peoples differing opinions, but in this case, I cannot see why anyone would find that game 'fun' in the slightest. I certainly didn't. Waste of two trial subscriptions.

So what you say is - you played it non-stop for 3 weeks and DID NOT ENJOY IT? (OMGWTFBBQ)
Back to the subject :
Graphics.
not complaining about quality , but the faces and characters makes me wanna stick my head into my dog's mouth (AND SHE HAS A BIG ONE DAMMIT!)
Nothing else wrong. well built MUMORPUGER.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

It's incredibly, incredibly boring.

I played it non-stop for 3 fucking weeks, and not a single thing in it, the community, the mechanics, the art design, or the backstory managed to engage me in the slightest. Rarely, if ever, does that happen.

I respect peoples differing opinions, but in this case, I cannot see why anyone would find that game 'fun' in the slightest. I certainly didn't. Waste of two trial subscriptions.

So what you say is - you played it non-stop for 3 weeks and DID NOT ENJOY IT? (OMGWTFBBQ)
Back to the subject :
Graphics.
not complaining about quality , but the faces and characters makes me wanna stick my head into my dog's mouth (AND SHE HAS A BIG ONE DAMMIT!)
Nothing else wrong. well built MUMORPUGER.

Unfortunately MMO's are the kind of game you have to sink time in before it gets "good".

Games that I have to wait for em to be fun, I don't consider worth my time.

 

[Weaver]

I hate it because it did absolutely nothing new at all in terms of MMORPGs (besides being in the Warcraft universe) yet for some reason is way more popular than ones which I'd say are much better. Then all the people who tell me I'm stupid for thinking this haven't actually PLAYED an MMO that wasn't WoW so it's like arguing with a damn wall.

 

[Bat Vader]

It's incredibly, incredibly boring.

I played it non-stop for 3 fucking weeks, and not a single thing in it, the community, the mechanics, the art design, or the backstory managed to engage me in the slightest. Rarely, if ever, does that happen.

I respect peoples differing opinions, but in this case, I cannot see why anyone would find that game 'fun' in the slightest. I certainly didn't. Waste of two trial subscriptions.

People have different tastes. What you find boring someone else may find fun. In my opinion I think WoW is fun. Some of the quests they have you do to me was fun and I also like exploring Northrend.

I think when The Old Republic comes out though that I will go over to that. Mostly because I am a huge Star Wars fan and Bioware is great at making games.

 

[Bobthedragon]

I've played it for about a year or two now, so yeah. I can think of a thing or two wrong with it.

First, there's the PVP issue. Sure, since they've fixed the whole twink thing it's gotten a lot more fun to do, but there's still the fact that I can be riding around in Wintergrasp on my warlock, get sapped, then pretty much three-shotted by the offending rogue. Sure, I'm supposed to expect this, being a clothy, but still, it gets kind of annoying when you're farming, doesn't it?

Then there's the difficulty curve. I remember the first time I went into AQ 40. That was fun. took forever, yeah, but it was still fun. I even got a yellow battle tank out of it! But the new endgame content just pales in comparison to something like that. most of the bosses in Naxx are just trivial or "hey guys, can we go in here? *insert avatar name here* needs some starter gear." Same thing with OS, it's really only a challenge if you're leaving more than one drake up, and even then, you just have to have a group of players who know what they're doing well enough to pull 5k+ DPS in a mass zerg on Sarth. So far, I think that Eye of Eternity is one of my favorite endgame raids, just because of the coordination it requires. you can't go in there with a group of ten people who don't have any clue what to do and expect to get it on your first try, it's just highly unlikely. Putting that issue aside, I do like the Ulduar hard mode, and Trial of the Crusader does add a bit of flavor (again, coordination is key with most of the bosses). Icecrown Citadel, however...well it's kind of up and down for me. As a casual raider, I haven't downed the Lich King yet, but I'm hoping to before Cataclysm.

So yeah, that's really all I can think of for now. If there's anything else I can think of, I'll post it later.

 

[Bigeyez]

That's a fallacious comparison that assumes that people have nothing else to buy, and that they'll immediately stop wanting other games simply because they play WoW. While this is true for the hardcore, it's hardly the only way that owning the game works out for people.

The point was that playing WoW is less expensive then playing other games or even other hobbys. I don't see how you buying other games somehow makes WoW more expensive. If you pay for a WoW sub and then on top of that buy a ton of brand new games then of course you're going to be spending a lot of money, but how is that WoW's fault?

Again, unless you buy only 1 or 2 videogames a year, WoW and mmo's in general ARE cheaper to play then other videogames.

 

[Bigeyez]

Yes, that is such an excellent point! I'm not a WoW fan, heck I'm not even on the MMO side of the fence but this is a brilliant post.

However, the thing with WoW is, being the one game means it has very limited experiences. It's only got so much in it, I buy quite a few games a year to be able to play different kinds. So I get dozens of different experiences and stories etc. So to me, the $15 to merely keep playing the one game seems a bit pricey to me considering you pay quite a bit for the game and its expansions as well.

Thats a perfectly reasonable reason to not pay for an mmo sub. Strip away the fancy doodads added with each content update and you are essentially playing the same game year after year.

 

[[Gavo]]

The grind kills me, as does the monthly fee. Both reasons why I stopped.

 

[Grounogeos]

I personally find it enjoyable, but it's just not interesting to some people. That's really all there is to it.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

Yes, that is such an excellent point! I'm not a WoW fan, heck I'm not even on the MMO side of the fence but this is a brilliant post.

However, the thing with WoW is, being the one game means it has very limited experiences. It's only got so much in it, I buy quite a few games a year to be able to play different kinds. So I get dozens of different experiences and stories etc. So to me, the $15 to merely keep playing the one game seems a bit pricey to me considering you pay quite a bit for the game and its expansions as well.

Thats a perfectly reasonable reason to not pay for an mmo sub. Strip away the fancy doodads added with each content update and you are essentially playing the same game year after year.

Plus I do tend to replay most of my games, so they become what they're worth in time if they didn't the first time around.

I just don't believe in paying more then the cost of buying a game to play it. I do however pay for XBL but that's a once a year deal, and works for all my games is way cheaper too.

 

[Bynine]

It wastes time that could be spent doing anything else.

 

[[Gavo]]

]The grind kills me, as does the monthly fee. Both reasons why I stopped.

If you think Wow is grind intensive, you clearly haven't tried a korean/asian MMO.

WoW has it EASY. Try leveling in Lineage II...

Oh, I have, my friend showed it to me...god. Horrid stuff.

 

[meepop]

I play WoW, and I can say it's not boring, but only for THAT VERY REASON. Look, it's the same reason that some people prefer chocolate over vanilla, sports over books; all games are created to unwind. It is addicting, and I don't play it much anymore for more than I got some friends on there...Surely all of you have gone through this thought of your favorite game: Hmmm it's gotten boring, I think I'll switch to another game. And then you come back to your old favorite game after a week of the other game.
People think it's bad because it's addicting but so is smoking, and at least gaming can't kill you (before you respond to this statement) BY WAY OF LUNG DISEASE OR ALCOHOL! Games are played to unwind, and while WoW is designed to be grind, what MMO isn't grind? Without it, it may as well be a flash game that starts over after you finish it; it keeps people playing as an arcade game at the boardwalk does. Another thing that makes it hated is its sales, people are jealous that all their friends are playing WoW while they're stuck with their Eve Online or Tabula Rasa (not insulting everyone who plays those games, just ones off the top of my head, so please don't flame me!) because they don't wanna be part of the majority and be added to the monster that is Blizzard.
If you like grind and an open world, play WoW; there's no reason you wouldn't want to, but the same can be said of all MMOs. However, as much as they have everything the same, World of Warcraft does it better; don't just think "Oh that guy doesn't know what he's talking about because he PLAYS WoW." I do play WoW, but I've gotten bored with it lately, and so my final point is this: WoW is hated just because it sucks people in and until something breaks their connection to it, it's like a leech: sucking money, power, and social skills out of people. While, at the same time, it builds social skills because you're talking with people even if they aren't in the same state as you; play WoW if you want, or play a different game if you want, just have fun as it was meant to be.