Why do so many dis World of Warcraft?

So, I know its not the greatest MMORPG out there and I know it costs $15 a month and all that, but I've never had a problem with it. People used to say it sucked because nerds who have no life spend so much time playing it. Now that they've made it way easier to level, everyone seems to have a problem with it being too short to level cap. There used to not be enough spells, buttons, or options or what not. Now that they've added more, there are too many.The whole "nerd with no life" thing, is a total misunderstanding. I've been playing WoW for years and it has not affected my social life in any way. Some people may think differently, but anything can get you addicted to that nature.I don't think any other MMOis any better or worse than WoW when we're talking about addiction and having "no life". Opinions?

Everything that is popular has a vocal minority that complains about it. When it comes to WoW alot of the hate is from people who have never played the game. They base their judgment on the stereotype that you mentioned. There is also this great fear of WoW being addictive...Everything can be addictive even chocolate. As for me I hate WoW right now becouse I want to respec my DK and have no idea which way to go=p

I really have nothing against the game. I don't like it, but I can see why it is popular.

I make fun of the people who PLAY the game, because they are just insane. One of my best friends had a brother who got a full ride scholarship to Northern Arizona University(the Harvard of the Grand Canyon State), but dropped out soley to play WoW. He is currently 27 without a job, living at home and plays WoW around 12 hours a day. This ain't an isolated case, either.

I quit the game because it boring and repetitive....one of my friends however sits in front of his computer all day long and that's all he plays ....its either WoW or he goes on youtube. Sad part of it is he has three consoles and hasn't touched one of them since he started playing. So yes WoW is definitely addicting for some people.

I really have nothing against the game. I don't like it, but I can see why it is popular.

I make fun of the people who PLAY the game, because they are just insane. One of my best friends had a brother who got a full ride scholarship to Northern Arizona University(the Harvard of the Grand Canyon State), but dropped out soley to play WoW. He is currently 27 without a job, living at home and plays WoW around 12 hours a day. This ain't an isolated case, either.

heysharpshooter

Why would you make someone for playing that game? You and others are lumping all game addictions into one category of people, WoW players. There are Xbox 360, and PS3 addicts. Hell, I'm sure there's even Wii addicts! Gaming addictions are formed, in the psychological sense, that it brings a lot of pleasure to the player, and therefore they just want to keep playing for more pleasure. Some get it through WoW, others get it through console games. I've played WoW (not anymore, got tired of it), and I know a lot of real life friends and virtual friends who play that are nowhere near the "addict" stage.

Making fun of them doesn't better the situation. People drop out of school, and ruin their social lives due to various addictions. Making fun of somebody for playing WoW is like making fun of somebody addicted to drugs. They're not necessarily addicted to a substance, but rather to the experience of pleasure the brain undergoes.

[QUOTE="heysharpshooter"]

I really have nothing against the game. I don't like it, but I can see why it is popular.

I make fun of the people who PLAY the game, because they are just insane. One of my best friends had a brother who got a full ride scholarship to Northern Arizona University(the Harvard of the Grand Canyon State), but dropped out soley to play WoW. He is currently 27 without a job, living at home and plays WoW around 12 hours a day. This ain't an isolated case, either.

Mrha

Why would you make someone for playing that game? You and others are lumping all game addictions into one category of people, WoW players. There are Xbox 360, and PS3 addicts. Hell, I'm sure there's even Wii addicts! Gaming addictions are formed, in the psychological sense, that it brings a lot of pleasure to the player, and therefore they just want to keep playing for more pleasure. Some get it through WoW, others get it through console games. I've played WoW (not anymore, got tired of it), and I know a lot of real life friends and virtual friends who play that are nowhere near the "addict" stage.

Making fun of them doesn't better the situation. People drop out of school, and ruin their social lives due to various addictions. Making fun of somebody for playing WoW is like making fun of somebody addicted to drugs. They're not necessarily addicted to a substance, but rather to the experience of pleasure the brain undergoes.

How many people do you know who dropped out of school to play Halo 3 all day and now live at home with their parents? WoW, because of the TYPE of game it is, has a different affect on people. Just like EverQuest used to do.

While this is true, you just created your own antithesis by mentioning Everquest. Considering EQ had garnered the same "addiction" problems, blaming it on a singular game is a bit absurd.

WoW just happen to be the biggest MMO on the market, so it gets the most negative light. But again, this doesn't mean that MMO's are inherently evil, or bad for people in general. It's just another form of addiction that some people slide into. Another form of Escapism, as it were. I don't want this to turn into another "WoW is evil, because I read on the internet that people lose their job/marriage/dog from playing too much." I just want to point out that addiction takes many forms, and with every other addiction, the blame lays square on the shoulders of the person addicted, not the thing they're addicted to. It should be the same for video games as well.

I'm bored of WoW now. All that effort raiding end game and a patch later the gear's accessible easily to people who hardly play.

I dislike MMORPGs in general because their success is showing companies where the real money is: to hell with complex storylines, deep characters and moral choices... just give people a lifeless, cookie-cutter character to level up with no plot whatsoever to follow. And when they're done leveling? Never fear, they'll make another one and start over! Blizzard earns over $150.000.000 each month from World of WarCash and looks like more and more companies want a slice of the cake.Black_Knight_00

I dislike MMORPGs in general because their success is showing companies where the real money is: to hell with complex storylines, deep characters and moral choices... just give people a lifeless, cookie-cutter character to level up with no plot whatsoever to follow. And when they're done leveling? Never fear, they'll make another one and start over! Blizzard earns over $150.000.000 each month from World of WarCash and looks like more and more companies want a slice of the cake.Black_Knight_00

Very well said, and I couldn't agree more.

After being persuaded by my die-hard WoW playing friend to give it a chance, there's a few things I just didn't care for:

-There's really no social aspect present aside from your own party members. Everyone seems to be running about doing their own business and ignoring anyone looking for adventure or in need of help. Not only that, most were flat out rude. Yea, I was a "newb" I suppose and I understand not everyone is going to be sitting in front of the fire singing "kumbaya my friend", but it seemed to be the exact opposite of what I thought to be the main draw of a MMORPG: socializing while playing.

-I never felt like I was striving towards any conclusion. There was never a feeling that there was an overall objective, only superficial ones. Hunt the wolves, mine the gold, clear the caves. The entire time I was playing I kept asking myself, "what's the point?" Am I actually making any progress towards an ultimate objective here or am I just endlessly turning the wheel?

-My character was not unique, had no personality whatsoever, and like BlackKnight stated, was cookie-cutter.

-KoToR, Phantasy Star. Great series sacrificed to feed the almighty MMORPG cash cow formula. More to come I'm sure.

I hate on it now becuase I'm one of those ex wow players after I hit lv cap I got bored, sick and tiredrunning the same raids with my ex guildand want something new actually my hate goes towards blizzard now for milking wow.

just give people a lifeless, cookie-cutter character to level up with no plot whatsoever to follow.Black_Knight_00

Very well said, and I couldn't agree more.

After being persuaded by my die-hard WoW playing friend to give it a chance, there's a few things I just didn't care for:

-There's really no social aspect present aside from your own party members. Everyone seems to be running about doing their own business and ignoring anyone looking for adventure or in need of help. Not only that, most were flat out rude. Yea, I was a "newb" I suppose and I understand not everyone is going to be sitting in front of the fire singing "kumbaya my friend", but it seemed to be the exact opposite of what I thought to be the main draw of a MMORPG: socializing while playing.

-I never felt like I was striving towards any conclusion. There was never a feeling that there was an overall objective, only superficial ones. Hunt the wolves, mine the gold, clear the caves. The entire time I was playing I kept asking myself, "what's the point?" Am I actually making any progress towards an ultimate objective here or am I just endlessly turning the wheel?

-My character was not unique, had no personality whatsoever, and like BlackKnight stated, was cookie-cutter.

-KoToR, Phantasy Star. Great series sacrificed to feed the almighty MMORPG cash cow formula. More to come I'm sure.

Rekunta

Good points, and I have more thoughts to add:

- I never really played WoW, but I tried other MMORPGs and they don't EVER give you any kind of choice: oh, there's a quest about saving the caravan carrying the king's gold from the bandits... what if I want to side with the thieves and share the loot? I can't, I can only kill the bad guys, get my reward and move on. Maybe WoW lets you choose, but from what I hear (and since all my friends are into that crap, I hear a LOT) it doesn't.

- Wherever I go, there's players minding their own business. An NPC greets me "Welcome to our peaceful town, life is simple and boring here", yeah... while a dozen battle armored warlords riding fire breathing golden lions roam his backyard...
Then there's the poor player that keeps asking for a healer to complete a quest and no one cares to answer... and he floods the common chat with macroed messages.

- What I call the "post office effect". You see a distressed NPC crying for help because the rat king and his minions have invaded his house, you accept the quest, slay the rat king and collect the reward with many thanks from the NPC... then another player comes and starts the same quest you just completed. It's like you're standing in line waiting for the NPC to be done with another player and say "next!". I know that's how the game works, but this greatly breaks the immersion, IMO.

- Like in your 3rd point, I can't customize my character. All I want from an RPG is the ability to play dress-up with my character, you know... to make it unique: aside from being able to give him a beard and change my hair colour, I want the ability to wear a black cape and a hood... is that so hard to make?! Instead, all the characters in WoW and his spawned clones look basically the same.

- The HUD covers half the screen. I know you need it and can move it and hide it, but it covers half the damn screen!

Well, there is quite a bit of lore to the Warcraft world and environment...muthsera666

Yeah, but if I wanted to read a fantasy book, I'd read The Lord of the Rings for the tenth time :P In a game, I want cutscenes and charismatic bad guys and a convoluted plot to follow, not a million lines of text to scroll through à la Mass Effect :(

I was playing it during its best days, summer 2005 :D. And then it got easier and easier and absolutely boring with all the "action". Still, always support Warcraft series and Blizz

[QUOTE="muthsera666"]Well, there is quite a bit of lore to the Warcraft world and environment...Black_Knight_00

Yeah, but if I wanted to read a fantasy book, I'd read The Lord of the Rings for the tenth time :P In a game, I want cutscenes and charismatic bad guys and a convoluted plot to follow, not a million lines of text to scroll through à la Mass Effect :(

[QUOTE="Black_Knight_00"][QUOTE="muthsera666"]Well, there is quite a bit of lore to the Warcraft world and environment...muthsera666

Yeah, but if I wanted to read a fantasy book, I'd read The Lord of the Rings for the tenth time :P In a game, I want cutscenes and charismatic bad guys and a convoluted plot to follow, not a million lines of text to scroll through à la Mass Effect :(

[QUOTE="muthsera666"]Your preferences don't change that the lore is there, though.Black_Knight_00

Virtually any RPG has an optional story. You could play through most RPGs only caring about the combat. The story is optional in virtually any game; you don't have to listen to any of the stories. Putting that kind of qualifier on it doesn't answer to the problem. It really depends what you want out of the game, I believe.

[QUOTE="Black_Knight_00"][QUOTE="muthsera666"]Your preferences don't change that the lore is there, though.muthsera666

Virtually any RPG has an optional story. You could play through most RPGs only caring about the combat. The story is optional in virtually any game; you don't have to listen to any of the stories. Putting that kind of qualifier on it doesn't answer to the problem. It really depends what you want out of the game, I believe.

Fair enough, yet I can see a difference between choosing to either watch or skip a cutscene or dialogue you'll run into by playing the game and having to go read a database to get some background info on why there are undead monsters raiding the land. I agree that it all depends on what motivates you to play, still, it's looks like what happened in the Atari 2600 era, when the game itself had no story exposition because nobody cared and if you really wanted some you had to go read the manual or the back of the box.Black_Knight_00

True. Honestly, I've never played WoW. I'm basically going by the beta of Vanguard I played a while ago and Perfect World International. There is story provided via text when accepting quests. So, I'm not sure how much is in the game and how much would require outside references.

I just know that Morrowind has very few cutscenes and the story is coveyed through text, something with which I don't have a problem.

one word...Haters, its a great game, i havent played in about 6 months but before that I played for over 4 years and I still have an itch for it. I purposely avoid getting back into it because I know it will suck me back in. WoW does something that most other games simply cannot do, it so immersive and an experience unlike any other. I just think that for those that dont get it or dont care for that kind of game there exists a jealousy factor. The game is beyod successful and with kind of success you are bound to find plenty of haters.

People like to slam popular things when they're insecure with their own identity. By making fun of something popular makes people feel like they're unique because they aren't into the norm. But in all actuality there's millions of people who do the exact same thing. So they're not unique, they're just judgemental. I personally don't play WoW because I can't justify paying for XBox Live AND WoW, although the game does appeal to my tastes.