I have been a long time gamer, starting on the Amiga playing text based adventure games with my father. I've got a longer hit list of MMO games then I have have ex girlfriends, and I have a lot of those. I even did play World of Warcraft, for about a year, And recently, I've come to the conclusion that I just hate World of Warcraft. Its as plain and simple as that. So, I've started this thread to bring up my points in a sort of editorial fashion.
*Flame Retardant Clothing Section*
I don't just suck at the game I made it to maximum level pre-expansion, but didn't continue after that.
I gave World of Warcraft a fair try, like I said I played a year, was in a guild, even raided.
I am not just being non-conformist, I'm perfectly happy doing what everyone else does, as long as I am enjoying it.
*Its Time to Start*
On the surface everything looks beautiful, crisp stylized graphics, a beautiful world to explore that is hugely expansive, many classes and races to choose from, and a huge player base to party up with. My problem is the game underneath that beautiful shine reside a simplistic combat system, and a terrible time sink.
The combat system, in any other genre would be wrung out to dry by critiques for being completely non-interactive, You practically play a non-musical form of guitar hero, as you dance through a series of hot-keys with illegible little icons. The higher your level the more complex this dance becomes, but It never requires any skill from the user the "best build" can be found in a myriad of sites across the internet, so rather then customizing your character to be unique, you will customize it to someone else specifications to be effective.
This complete lack of thought, permeates the entire game, As many mods are available for the game including those that point you in the correct direction for your quest at all times. Completely removing the need to explore. You can also find macros to provide automatic targeting and healing in team play. Although this is an interesting feature, what would require a quick hand on the mouse and accurate watching of the teams health can be done better with a single macro'd button press.
Worse then that however, is the game requires hours and hours, from crafting, to questing, everything you do requires hours at a time. Now I know this is one of the trademarks of the MMO genre, but WoW is the most terrible offender I have found, Large raiding dungeons require upwards of 4 hours to complete, and harvesting materials for crafting (even when locating mods are applied) takes hours and hours to raise your skill.
Now, none of that would matter if the community was fantastic, Any game can be fun if played with the right people and for a game as popular as World of Warcraft it should be no problem to find friends in the game right? Well, many of the people I know locally play, and most of them have maximum level characters and primarily raid. I've had plenty of offers of help, but its always "to get to 80" "we've gotta get you up to 80" The whole game boils down to grinding to maximum level before the...fun starts? At which point, I listen to them talking about guild drama, how their healer got mad and quit mid dungeon, or this guy took all the money from the guild because he couldn't have the item he wanted. I sure want to spend months of my time playing for THAT. I have been told you have to "play for the end game content" and I just think why should I, I can pop in any other form of game, and within 5 minutes of completing the tutorial, be in game content with more game play then the best of WoW's 80 level instances. For example, Borderlands has recently come out, and it doesn't require months of time to get to the interesting part, I can link up with four of my friends at any level, and any quest can be explosive and fun, the later parts of the game doubly so.
And so, I ask you, what is it about world of warcraft is fun, What makes people willing to pay 15 dollars a month, put up with blizzards extra fees for stuff that most games don't charge for. It might be childish, but I am much happier slapping a disk into my PC, or my 360 and having the instant gratification of a video game that wants me and my team to have a good time, within minutes of starting the game.
*Flame Retardant Clothing Section*
I don't just suck at the game I made it to maximum level pre-expansion, but didn't continue after that.
I gave World of Warcraft a fair try, like I said I played a year, was in a guild, even raided.
I am not just being non-conformist, I'm perfectly happy doing what everyone else does, as long as I am enjoying it.
*Its Time to Start*
On the surface everything looks beautiful, crisp stylized graphics, a beautiful world to explore that is hugely expansive, many classes and races to choose from, and a huge player base to party up with. My problem is the game underneath that beautiful shine reside a simplistic combat system, and a terrible time sink.
The combat system, in any other genre would be wrung out to dry by critiques for being completely non-interactive, You practically play a non-musical form of guitar hero, as you dance through a series of hot-keys with illegible little icons. The higher your level the more complex this dance becomes, but It never requires any skill from the user the "best build" can be found in a myriad of sites across the internet, so rather then customizing your character to be unique, you will customize it to someone else specifications to be effective.
This complete lack of thought, permeates the entire game, As many mods are available for the game including those that point you in the correct direction for your quest at all times. Completely removing the need to explore. You can also find macros to provide automatic targeting and healing in team play. Although this is an interesting feature, what would require a quick hand on the mouse and accurate watching of the teams health can be done better with a single macro'd button press.
Worse then that however, is the game requires hours and hours, from crafting, to questing, everything you do requires hours at a time. Now I know this is one of the trademarks of the MMO genre, but WoW is the most terrible offender I have found, Large raiding dungeons require upwards of 4 hours to complete, and harvesting materials for crafting (even when locating mods are applied) takes hours and hours to raise your skill.
Now, none of that would matter if the community was fantastic, Any game can be fun if played with the right people and for a game as popular as World of Warcraft it should be no problem to find friends in the game right? Well, many of the people I know locally play, and most of them have maximum level characters and primarily raid. I've had plenty of offers of help, but its always "to get to 80" "we've gotta get you up to 80" The whole game boils down to grinding to maximum level before the...fun starts? At which point, I listen to them talking about guild drama, how their healer got mad and quit mid dungeon, or this guy took all the money from the guild because he couldn't have the item he wanted. I sure want to spend months of my time playing for THAT. I have been told you have to "play for the end game content" and I just think why should I, I can pop in any other form of game, and within 5 minutes of completing the tutorial, be in game content with more game play then the best of WoW's 80 level instances. For example, Borderlands has recently come out, and it doesn't require months of time to get to the interesting part, I can link up with four of my friends at any level, and any quest can be explosive and fun, the later parts of the game doubly so.
And so, I ask you, what is it about world of warcraft is fun, What makes people willing to pay 15 dollars a month, put up with blizzards extra fees for stuff that most games don't charge for. It might be childish, but I am much happier slapping a disk into my PC, or my 360 and having the instant gratification of a video game that wants me and my team to have a good time, within minutes of starting the game.
