I am a gamer. More importantly, I'm a gamer that happens to LOVE rpg's, as well as co-op play in its myriad of forms. Therefore, the idea of a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game), or momorpigger as Yahtzee so disdainfully calls them, is like premium crack to a crackhead.
Think about it. Fully realised fantasy worlds, existing only for the sole purpose of attracting people like me, who, will happily run around for hours, killing computer controlled enemies and gathering experience (the rewards you use to advance your character, or based on which your character is advanced in levels), seeking quest rewards and grinding (a term meaning doing the same few actions over and over again to maximise experience, or xp, gain) to gain those rare and powerful items that will make our characters more powerful and special in our eyes, and the eyes of our compatriots. All, of course, while quietly taking our money and our time. Which we were willing to give up anyway, else we wouldn't be there.
World of Warcraft is by far, without a doubt, the best...or rather, the most popular, of the lot. Blizzard, capitalising on its immense backstory to its very successful Warcraft series of RTS (Real Time Strategy) fantasy psuedo wargames, launched World of Warcraft ten years ago, following on from the release of Warcraft III, a game that vastly changed the nature of its Warcraft games at that point. Looking back now, its clear that it was all a devious plot from those creative bastards at Blizzard, as the storyline of Warcraft III led directly into WoW, as did the character interface and controls. Previously to Warcraft III, there had been just faceless units that were leveled up and sent out to wreak havoc on your enemies. Then Warcraft III introduced the Hero character, with special powers, available upgrades and items found throughout the game (albeit the best ones where usually storyline rewards), as well as scrolls, spells and other mechanics that are now the standard fare for anyone who's played WoW, or any of its copycat games released since then.
It is truly a fine product. No other MMORPG that I've played gives me that feeling of completeness. It is the best and most fully (totally bad grammar, but you get what I'm trying to say) realised digital world to be found online today, at least in the west, IMO. The races, the world design, the different options for play (while the enforcing of this is lax, as far as I'm concerned) and the overall spit shine put on this package is impressive. I've never gotten a better sense of scale in a game from just running around. Start a Tauren, then try and run from Mulgore, through The Barrens to Orgrimmar, the Horde capital, and you'll see what I mean. If you plan to, pack a lunch, you're gonna need it.
The environments are lush, and the design of the buildings, the items, the NPC's (non-player characters, i.e. those controlled by the computer/game ai), the spells and weapons, how all the quests tie in to the storyline, as well as the individual motives of the different factions that are vying for all their different aims in the game world....its one of the FEW games I can jump into, and in minutes the real world is a distant memory, and I'm gladly gathering herbs and killing pigs, all to the betterment of the Horde and its own aims. Even the PVP (player vs. player) elements are tied in to the storyline. All the different battlegrounds (0r arena's, if you prefer), are tied to the ongoing wars and conflicts that are ravaging the land. They all scale up as you advance in levels, with Alterac Valley, a 40 vs. 40 player arena, being the SINGLE BEST depiction of what large scale combat between powerful characters in a fantasy setting must be like, hands down. Spells light up the screen, raining hellfire and damnation down on the players. The ground rumbles, shockwaves ripple through the air, and players can be seen advancing and falling back, carrying out surgical strikes or simply trying to stave off advancing enemies. Also, this place is HUGE, so the effect of it being on the frontlines of the war is almost imperceptibly given. Players can encounter players from the other side at any time, as well as the beasts that roam the land which are loyal to one side or another.
Truly, there is nothing like it, and it stands as a testament to game design, and giving the fans what they want.
If you've read this far, then you're probably wondering what my problem with it is, as the name of this entry will suggest. Well, that's just it. Its so good. Its too good, to the point of being unplayable by me now, as it WILL suck me in, and not let me go.
Let me explain. Imagine if your everyday life had, well, not lived up to your childhood expectations. You're stuck in a negative and hateful society, where you're forced to toil at a job you don't like, hang out with people that don't really get you, or are themselves, as a group, marginalised by the greater part of society. You aren't rich, and hell you aren't happy with the myriad of idiots and assholes that populate your everyday life.
Not too hard to imagine, is it?
Then along comes a world made for you. A world wherein you can be what you want (within given limits), where you can excel, and be admired by a group of your peers, all of whom share the same interests and desires, hence why they're all playing this game. A world wherein time and effort translate seamlessly into ever increasing rewards and admiration for that complete set of T-1 armour you just finished collecting, and are now hanging out in Orgrimmar, usually by, or on top of, the bank by where the post office box is, and allowing all the lower level characters to admire that brand, spanking new glowing armour you just filled out. A world where you can choose one side or another, band together with others that share your outlook and choices, and go deliver your (digital) wrath on a band of opponents, everyday, all day, whenever you choose, simply by logging into WoW and selecting one of the many toons (slang for characters) that you are now levelling.
Now imagine if all that could be yours, each day, a total escape from the less than wonderful realities of your life, in the BEST realised digital world existing to date, and you can begin to see my problem with this. It first came to my attention when I started hearing stories of WoW eating lives and destroying relationships. Pretty soon, with a little research, I saw the horror stories. Relationships neglected, people losing jobs (which, to me, is HIGHLY counterproductive, as you NEED TO PAY TO PLAY, or your dealer WILL cut you off) and forgetting to eat, neglecting personal hygiene, things like that. Its a sad truth, but people will go to extreme lengths to forget their everyday troubles and be distracted from the harsh realities of their lives rather than facing them and trying to fix them, or at least exert as much control as they can. WoW provides an overwhelmingly good alternative to everyday life, and as its built to be another total world, it can become their mainlife, with this one existing only for them to eat, sleep, and earn the money they use to eat and play WoW.
Which brings me to another dislike I have with WoW, but which isn't unique to it, but to the genre of RPG's, and MMORPG's as well. That is, the Grind. God how I hate it. This happens round about level 20 in WoW, and it exists in all RPG's. This is where you hit a point where the quest rewards are insufficient and so far between that only questing cannot, or will not get you levels in a fast enough manner. So you go out and grind. In WoW, this takes the form of Instances, their version of dungeons, and a quite novel approach it is. Simply put, everything in WoW is ongoing. So, if you're out in a field and kill off all the monsters that are there, hang around for a bit. They will respawn, i.e. reappear according to a given time limit between kill and respawn. This way, the player gets a feeling of accomplishment, and other players aren't stuck with no creatures to kill when some quest giver in the barrens want 20 plain strider talons. Time passes, day to night, and the game world is never static....except when one enters an Instance, hence the name. Herein the player and his friends, as instances are listed by difficulty levels per party size, go in and depopulate a dungeon, with the rewards being higher xp rewards than found for equivalent level enemies, and better and more rare item drops overall. Enemies DO NOT respawn in an instance, as this would garauntee the deaths of the party, as these enemies are TOUGH, make no mistake.
So you put together an instance run, and you go in, get xp, and get the items. Wash, rinse, repeat. The higher you are in levels, hence the more xp you need, the more times you have to do this over, and over, and over, and over, ad nauseum. Don't even get me started on the tedium inherent in leveling your professional skills, dear god. It seems to be a design flaw inherent in the game type, that of an rpg tied to static levels, that makes grinding a must...and this is where WoW falls down. The grind is so extensive, and such a necessary part of it, along with all the other extensive features of your character that must be maintained, that you quickly realise that either you devote most of your time to this game, or you won't get anywhere fast, or anywhere at all. You must maintain your relationships with your friends online, as well as in your guild...and don't even get me STARTED on guilds. I REFUSE to join any organization set in an imaginary world wherein I will have to be subjected to an interview, a background check, a period of probation, and a post-probation interview after that, to see whether or not I 'pass the muster'. These people need to go get a life, or rather, go back to the one's they already have. Not all guilds are like this, but to get into the best ones, the process is some variant of what I've described here.
These people take their WoW seriously, let me tell you, to the point of arranging meetings in real life for their guild members, where the members have to defer to other membes, on the basis of their in-game rank.
I say to thee, no.
Once you're past all the shine, and you dig down into the meat of the game, to me, it takes on an aspect that, to me, is not necessary in video games, and is actually representative of something that I would engage in WoW to get away from, and that is work. The demands of keeping your guild requirements, the slog that item acquisition becomes at higher levels, actually requiring you to repeatedly engage in PVP for insane amounts of honor points (the PVP rewards, used to buy top level items and gear), and the lengthy quests that you have to go on to get your profession to the higher levels....WoW is NOT built for the casual player. Its all or nothing, and its 11 million plus fanbase aside, the recent and ongoing popularity of the Wii has demonstrated that there is quite a large fanbase of casual gamers looking for fun and interesting activities that do not require you to sacrifice your life and social engagement in the real world to satisfy. Also, its immersiveness works against it, but not in anyway that the money printing suits at blizzard will care for. Its effect on the lives of the people that play it cannot be denied. Rampant addiction (even among my friends, and myself at one point), while good business sense, is just detrimental to those that have to stand on the outside and watch their friends devolve into these nocturnal, pasty faced lurker that are online discussing random topics in the trade channel in Orgrimmar at three in the morning.
While this experience will not be symptomatic of all who play, you will have to dedicate extensive amounts of time and energy if choose to excel in this game, and who would WANT to be mediocre within the setting of an activity that they CHOOSE to play, and are paying for? The time and energy spent in this pursuit of digital and, in my opinion, nonexisting rewards is gone, poof, forever lost to humanity, when these creative and driven individuals could be putting them to some other, better use. I just think its wrong to build a product like this, and then not put some means in place to ensure that these people do not lose themselves in it too much. That would not be good business sense, as addiction, whether you believe it or not, is the best business model that the human race has found to date.
*Looks at the cigarette butts on the table beside him*
You get my point. You should take all the possible ramifications of your product into consideration, and then be the bigger person by looking out for your fellow man. I don't know what I want to say at this point, except that this is a disastrous trend for the users, and the society as a whole. All these stories of destroyed marriages, and people spiralling down into pits of WoW addiction cannot be made up, and as some, and most of them are true, you should then look into making some changes to your policies to try and stave this off. If this loses you money, then tough. Money isn't everything, and someone should be looking out for all these people.
Now comes the arguements about self control and whatnot, but I won't even go there with you. History and psychology shows that the average person does not stop to consider the reasons behind most of their actions, much less how to change these actions and thought processes to their betterment. They just live, and exist, between their cradle and their grave. With this in mind, it falls on YOU, Blizzard, to look out for your loyal users in some way, any way, at this point.
Not that I believe that this will ever happen.
More as it develops.
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