Advertisement
It seems a lot of people here blame WoW for various things that have happened to them, when it's actually appears to be the inconsiderate people who play it that cause the problems. Well, I actually detest World of Warcraft for some real game-playing reasons.
1) MMORPG is a contradiction in terms.
RPG stands for role-play game. The only thing WoW has in common with RPG's is the combat and character advancement systems. Thanks to it's massively-multiplayer online (the MMO bit) architecture, nothing you do in the game can possibly have any lasting effect on the it's world. If you can't actually do anything with any meaning, how can you actually role-play? Everything you can do in the game has be able to be done buy someone else at a later date. You can kill the same people over and over again. They just reappear. The same groups and cabals can be split up as many times as you can be bothered to start new characters to do the same quests for the same rewards. See what I'm getting at? Yes? Good.
2) The Design is Style over Substance
Yes, it's a good looking game. Yes, the back-story is fascinating. Yes, the sense of humour is good *and* unique. But the actual design and gameplay? Once you've learned to look past the facade, it's actually really crap. "Instances" are dungeons full of creatures that you're supposed to do as a team with other people, and each group gets it's own copy of the instance, hence the name. These dungeons are generally full of creatures who either stand around until you get close enough and attack you, or walk around until you get close enough and attack you. There are precious few occasions when they make what could be called decent tactical moves. Most of the time, they'll stand around laughing and talking among themselves while you merrily slaughter their colleagues on the other side of the room. Instances are merely an excuse to jack the difficulty up, making it seem like there's some real advancement in difficulty level, giving you better armour and weapons... they're just areas full of bad guys that stand around waiting for you to kill them. Oh, how simply *amazing* and groundbreaking. Hell, they couldn't even do anything about that in the add-on pack. They made it even worse. And that's the biggest reason I cancelled my WoW account yesterday.
3) It... does things to the people who play it.
This isn't limited simply to World of Warcraft, most MMORPG's have this problem. And I don't know if it's the games that do it or merely the people attracted to them are somehow socially stunted. Probably a combination of the two. But while I was trying to express to my guild the reasons I had lost interest in the game, one of them bit my head off. He didn't work on the game in any way what-so-ever, didn't write, didn't sculpt, didn't draw, didn't have ANY creative input in at all. And yet he took everything I said personally. It was as though I'd walked into a Taliban meeting and said "Hey! Don't you think that's a bit, you know, harsh?" Of course, his line was that I was slagging off an activity shared by a lot people. Er, excuse me, I've been playing this game since *BEFORE* it came out, I was in the European open beta test, what's with suddenly treating me like a clueless outsider? Oh, I'm sorry, did I point out the flaws in something you've been spending way too much time playing that has become more like an obsession to you? Could it possibly be that you've forgotten that people actually get paid to criticize games in exactly the way I did? They're called Journalists! WoW is just a computer game! Get a sense of perspective on the world and... oh, you've kicked me out of the guild, thus removing any conduit through which a civilized, reasonable, decent discussion about the game could have taken place. And here was me thinking you were a sensible, decent human being. I don't think you even pass as a human being anymore.
Me? Upset? Bitter? Livid? Nevaah! I got emotionally stomped on while trying to let some people I cared about know that I wasn't leaving the game because of them. Well, now I *AM* leaving the game because of them.
Assholes.
1) MMORPG is a contradiction in terms.
RPG stands for role-play game. The only thing WoW has in common with RPG's is the combat and character advancement systems. Thanks to it's massively-multiplayer online (the MMO bit) architecture, nothing you do in the game can possibly have any lasting effect on the it's world. If you can't actually do anything with any meaning, how can you actually role-play? Everything you can do in the game has be able to be done buy someone else at a later date. You can kill the same people over and over again. They just reappear. The same groups and cabals can be split up as many times as you can be bothered to start new characters to do the same quests for the same rewards. See what I'm getting at? Yes? Good.
2) The Design is Style over Substance
Yes, it's a good looking game. Yes, the back-story is fascinating. Yes, the sense of humour is good *and* unique. But the actual design and gameplay? Once you've learned to look past the facade, it's actually really crap. "Instances" are dungeons full of creatures that you're supposed to do as a team with other people, and each group gets it's own copy of the instance, hence the name. These dungeons are generally full of creatures who either stand around until you get close enough and attack you, or walk around until you get close enough and attack you. There are precious few occasions when they make what could be called decent tactical moves. Most of the time, they'll stand around laughing and talking among themselves while you merrily slaughter their colleagues on the other side of the room. Instances are merely an excuse to jack the difficulty up, making it seem like there's some real advancement in difficulty level, giving you better armour and weapons... they're just areas full of bad guys that stand around waiting for you to kill them. Oh, how simply *amazing* and groundbreaking. Hell, they couldn't even do anything about that in the add-on pack. They made it even worse. And that's the biggest reason I cancelled my WoW account yesterday.
3) It... does things to the people who play it.
This isn't limited simply to World of Warcraft, most MMORPG's have this problem. And I don't know if it's the games that do it or merely the people attracted to them are somehow socially stunted. Probably a combination of the two. But while I was trying to express to my guild the reasons I had lost interest in the game, one of them bit my head off. He didn't work on the game in any way what-so-ever, didn't write, didn't sculpt, didn't draw, didn't have ANY creative input in at all. And yet he took everything I said personally. It was as though I'd walked into a Taliban meeting and said "Hey! Don't you think that's a bit, you know, harsh?" Of course, his line was that I was slagging off an activity shared by a lot people. Er, excuse me, I've been playing this game since *BEFORE* it came out, I was in the European open beta test, what's with suddenly treating me like a clueless outsider? Oh, I'm sorry, did I point out the flaws in something you've been spending way too much time playing that has become more like an obsession to you? Could it possibly be that you've forgotten that people actually get paid to criticize games in exactly the way I did? They're called Journalists! WoW is just a computer game! Get a sense of perspective on the world and... oh, you've kicked me out of the guild, thus removing any conduit through which a civilized, reasonable, decent discussion about the game could have taken place. And here was me thinking you were a sensible, decent human being. I don't think you even pass as a human being anymore.
Me? Upset? Bitter? Livid? Nevaah! I got emotionally stomped on while trying to let some people I cared about know that I wasn't leaving the game because of them. Well, now I *AM* leaving the game because of them.
Assholes.
Advertisement
Advertisement
-
Re: I actually hate WoW for a good reason
Fri, May 4, 2007 - 9:05 AMBummer deal Edward, guild politics and hissyfits are a bit unavoidable and your points are completely valad. I usually make the same assumption that others in game are adults and can act accordingly and discuss things of merrit without getting emotional.
You have very good points, oh look they killed Onyxia again. I too would love more world effecting challenges. When reading up on how they were going to open the portal in wowwiki, they said it might have been such a world event where a book would drop once off KelThasud (sp?) and a ritual by many players would have to be done to open the portal for good. That would have been a good start. I too have been getting board withteh game. I don't get big blocks of time to play or do instances so I am stuck with just questing and grinding alone. That gets old especially at lvl 64 when progress is painfully slow. I just don't get the rewards of playing fast enough anymore. I've started a few alts but they are now questing is the same areas I already quested.
I have been too busy for gaming lately, but I do still like to escape occasionally and I've had an urge to play civilization again. I've learned allot of how politics work in that game and in this day and age it's good to practics playing prez on your own to put things in perspective. :)
Try D&D online, it has a different meele play style and it's new enough to potentially have more world events in it's future.
:) -
-
Re: I actually hate WoW for a good reason
Fri, May 4, 2007 - 10:01 AMI actually played the D&D online open beta as well. I was very impressed with it at the time, especially the whole narrator commentary thing. I did get the impression that it expects you to play with other people all the time though. I found it very hard to solo anything, except the first few quests, and the everything's-an-instance style of design isn't really my taste.
But then again, I just bought myself a set of D&D edition 3.5 source books for the real table top D&D game. Hoping to drag some of my friends off WoW and into that instead. A healthy social life is a requirement of playing that game, just as long as you don't play it too much and don't take it too seriously. Plus, being a creative writer at heart, it's really good for exercising the wit.
GM: "You walk into the bar. The two faction leaders are sitting at the table in the middle of the wreckage, with a dozen or so bodyguards behind each of them."
Player: "I walk up to the nearest bodyguard and piss on his leg."
Gm: "Uhmm... er..."
True story, wish I was making it up, but I'm not ;)
-
