WoW: Could 11 Million People be Wrong?

[Charli]

I find a great deal of newer players grow to hate the game because they don't truly play it. It's a sad fact that majority of the player base is of a higher level, so for a social game many players see it as pure grind, which the game really isn't. There is so much to do in WoW, so many ways to play, that no one person can ever fully explore the full range of options. Between the professions, the many different battlegrounds and arenas for PvP and the utter ocean of PvE content, any person who is given the right opportunities is bound to find something they enjoy. It's a shame, and a problem Blizzard needs to address, that the current low-density population in the starting areas is giving so many players the wrong impression.

On another note, keep in mind when calculating the cost of WoW that the time spent playing is often allocated leisure time, rather than time detracted from more financially profitable options. It may equate to over a grand in terms of man-hours, but it's unlikely those hours would have been spent on work anyway. if not, then WoW is the least of your problems.

If anyone wants to give WoW a shot and see the better side of it, i'm always eager to help never players whenever I can, as well as some other players that frequent the Escapist. You're right to get bored with the game you're playing, but that game probably isn't really WoW.

Unless you're a filthy Alliance.

That can sum up my opinion of 'those who claim to be informed', the other category is the nostalgic ridden Old player who finally having come to terms that he no longer harvests any intrest from the game goes out of his or her way to bad mouth it and claim how WotLK or BC 'ruined' the game. So far from what the truth really is... just a loss of interest... It happens, I used to like pokemon, the new anime series? It horrifies me, but I loved it and wont go around waving my cane at those who are into the new series.

Alot of the hate in this thread seems to be based around assumption that NONE of us can balance our time...and I don't even have a response for that, I'm fairly sucessful with life, same with WoW, what more do you want. I speak with friends and family regularly, I don't go out much because I have to save money right now, and I run for fun every now and then. Okay I play WoW and I see the addictive qualities that would have me playing 24/7, I identify, and then avoid if it holds no real benefit for my playing experience, which of course none of it really does, but I do stuff to earn a bit of money, raid, then log off for the night. All of which is 3-4 hours tops.

And hehe, Naxxramas...my guild were so desperate for a paladin they dragged me around in greens, I got lucky, but now I'm one of their best Ulduar geared players... go figure. Point is, No those 11 million people are not wrong, their opinion of the game just differs from yours dude, as Yahtzee put it, 'we just like that sort of thing'.

I too am willing to help any EU's on the threshold of curiousity toward WoW, But for the Alliance! Even though our leaders being kind of jerk right now... Sorry Horde, we're all equally embaressed by Varian. Lady Proudmoore should give him a smack. And then a cookie...and send him to a corner so he can stop being a vengeful monkey.

 

[Takoto]

I knew before I played it that it was a mediocre game. It can still be fun (even though I've hardly played it...).

 

[nettkenneth]

i played a couple of mmorpg's and well wow is the best of the class but i rather play a game with a variety of "quests" kill x amounts of animal y for quest giver z, i may cut all with one knife but i belive all mmorpg's grind to the border of boredom (i accept there are are exeptions)

 

[Willwillwritehiswill]

I'll agree with OP on most points. However in my view the game truly doesn't kick off until you reach the level limit. At that point levels are really replaced by gear. More often than not raiding is a much more entertaining alternative to questing and blizzard really do put alot of work into their game.

Of course it's a grind. What else are MMOs these days?

 

[Emeli]

WoW is evil. The entire point of the game from the developer's perspective is to keep you playing for as long as possible, which means two things:

1) Grinding, the lesser of two evils. To even keep on par with the large majority of players you need epic mounts, pots, mats, skill levels, repairs and all come at a hefty price, which means that is you want to keep up with the rest of your guild, you sure as shit can't spare any second of free time you have, and

2) Competition. When you have reached level 80, assuming you're not a PvPer, you want a raid spot. This is a zero sum game. One person's win is another's loss. For every raid spot and piece of loot you get someone else misses out, an vice versa. And no, there is no system to make it fair. If your computer crashes or you have the audacity to want to see your family, there goes your raid spot for the week.

I stopped playing because for every hour of super rocking raiding, there was twenty of grinding, arguing, politicking and farming. It's genuinely a terrible plague on people's lives.

 

[AncientYoungSon]

I played WoW for a year and a half (3 level 60s, some 40s and 20s, never bought an expansion) so I suppose I'll add my two cents...

WoW is like "eDisney World": you go on the rides (quests), you see the sights (areas), you make a few friends, and then, when you leave, it's like you were never there at all.

Beyond that, WoW feels like a bad prank on the player. You spend all this time leveling up and becoming more powerful, feeling a sense of accomplishment, but once you hit the level cap, anything worth doing requires an army. It's backwards logic.

The game is too convenient and that kills immersion. Monsters mill about like fruit waiting to be plucked from a tree, any NPC that is killed will respawn shortly. You never need to return to an area once you've leveled past it and the game has no zeitgeist beyond "get better gear".

There's seldom any story development in the game and nothing you do will EVER have any lasting impact on the game world. It's quite a shame because the Warcraft lore was pretty decent, but none of that is reflected in the game. After Thrall defeated Admiral Proudmoore, he apparently decided to just stand in his throne room, staring blankly ahead for the next three years, doing nothing.

And the endgame is horrible. Emell said it best...

I stopped playing because for every hour of super rocking raiding, there was twenty of grinding, arguing, politicking and farming. It's genuinely a terrible plague on people's lives.

You spend more time fighting each other than you do the actual monsters because of the politics involved in it.

When you boil it down, WoW is a single-player game. The only thing you're ever encouraged to care about is your own gear. Even the "tightest" raiding guilds regularly fall apart because of gear disputes.

I've played MMOs that have stories the player can actually be a PART of. I've played MMOs that give players a sense of camaraderie because the fantasy world filled with danger and intrigue is actually DANGEROUS, and I don't just mean being ganked. You band together with your fellow players out of necessity and it makes the whole experience that much more real. It's not just how many purples your character is wearing or how many nightmarishly boring hours you spend raiding.

With the insane amount of money Blizzard is making, they could easily afford to make the experience more eventful, add random world events, town invasions, something, ANYTHING to make it feel like the world is actually out to get you instead of just being a bland leveling treadmill where everything is "repeatable" which means nothing is meaningful.

I think it was one of the Blizzard designers who said they designed the game with "controlled coolness" in mind in order to keep the player from having too much fun.

It's a shame. WoW had potential to be so much more than a "progress quest" but it's just another timesink grind with little to offer in return but a subtle feeling of accomplishment to keep people playing. That feeling is what these 11 million people are missing from their lives so they've found it in WoW. I admit, it felt good at the time and continued to feel good until I lost the connection between my progress in the game and any sense of meaning.

11 million people are getting an artificial sense of satisfaction from a game and putting their real lives on hold (most are, anyway). That's the epitome of "wrong". After I quit WoW (for the 2nd time when it stuck), I went out and started my own business. Now, I don't need the slow, IV drip of accomplishment given by an MMO.

I look back on it with SOME fondness, sure, but I'm glad to have moved past that point in my life and I have nothing but pity for those who are still hooked on the feeling it offers.

 

[Jonesy911]

The answer is yes, 11 million people can be wrong. I never really got WOW, it's sooooo boring and its all for its own sake.

They're not wrong, they just have a different opinion to you.

You're forgetting I'm Jesus therefore I cannot be wrong.

Except Jesus wouldn't be that close-minded about it.

Well Jesus is religious and religious people are notoriously close minded.

Read the Bible and I think you'd be surprised how open-minded Jesus was compared to the religious people that you know, but regardless, don't speak out of ignorance.

I should give that a read

 

[crooked_ferret]

to answer the initial question brought on by this thread.

Yes, I believe a billion people could easily be wrong.
It becomes that much more difficult to admit so when you've invested that much time and effort and resources into something. Entire nations have fallen civilizations crumbled, because people were simply not willing to admit they were wrong.

... I mean explain the nazis to me.