*Raises two hands up very, very high!*
I got kinda bored reading comments past the second page, so I just skipped to the end to put in my two cents. I disliked WoW from the outset for a number of reasons:
1. Because it charged per month - I really didn't want games to go in that direction and I knew being Blizzard, it was going to be successful, so I resented it. Lo and behold, that has happened and I still resent it.
2. I'm a massive fan of the Warcraft and Starcraft story lines and a MASSIVE fans of both games and the RTS genre itself. Warcraft was for many, many years (I forget when Orcs vs. Humans came out) an RTS franchise and I loved every minute of it. Now they've taken my game and stuck it on some dumbed down, 'appeal to the broadest cross-section of the population possible', boring gameplay massively multiplayer online role-playing game. I feel robbed. I wanted the next chapter in micro-managed, fast paced action Warcraft as an RTS. Like it should have been. This next comment is likely to annoy some people, but I MADE THIS FRANCHISE, along with every other player who picked up WC's 1-3 and their expansions as an RTS. Unfortunately for us, Blizzard went the direction of the MMORPG and it was a runaway success. But could they have made such a successful game without the original three? No. Absolutely not. Not a chance in the world. Sure, they might have made a MMORPG but the juggernaut it became was built on the foundations laid by the pre-existing material in the franchise, not to mention the fans or the placement of Blizzard in the market that resulted from its previous successes (you can't pull of something this ambitious unless you're already well established, well financed and well mangaged and companies build such traits up over time). If you disagree with that, then you're an idiot. So now how about us RTS fans who have already bought three games and their expansions over the years? We don't want to go online, play money for an RPG that we don't want to play. Where the hell is the loyalty to the fans that made you Blizzard?
3. Because of the monster that WoW has become, Blizzard seem absolutely focussed on nothing else besides. I mean, why would they? It doesn't make sense - they are a company in the 21st century - companies exist to make money. At the end of the day, that's what they're there for. WoW is bringing Blizzard astronomical amounts of cash and being the shrewd business that they are, of course it's going to get all their attention. Which brings me to my point: when are we ever going to get anything else? I'll be really sad if WoW and Burning Crusade and the next expansion they release and then WoW II are the only projects that I'm going to see for the next 5 years... Sure there were those rumours that Blizzard were hiring level designers a little while ago but I'm still hanging out for a company exec to say they've got StarCraft II or Warcraft IV in the pipes. I have very little hope for WC IV, considering the story line would necessarily clash with WoW's quests, but StarCraft is one of the all time most popular games ever. The same point applies to the Diablo series, if you can't relate to my RTS point of view. Simply: where's the love?
4. Many, many other points beside but what's the point - it's not like me writing demi-theses on the net is actually going to change anything, so I'll wrap it up here.
But on a side note, I agree with the poster above me re. control of the game world and a few other posters before him. With everything given to you in pre-scripted quests and very 'simple' PvP, non-destructible environments, etc., you really have very little control over what you're doing, only how much time you're willing to put in to do what you did yesterday: quest for loot. Over time, sure, you're going to get better loot and patches and expansions are going to give you even more loot! Better loot! Awesome! But games aren't meant to last forever. They're there for entertainment, to distract you for a few hours a day maybe. Blizzard are smart - paying subscriptions for the loot quest that never ends is smart marketing and they'll be stuffed full of money before the millions of people playing the game realise they've given a lot of their money (recoverable) and a LOT of their time (unrecoverable) doing something that makes no real world contribution (to themselves or others) and has achieved nothing tangible only get their digital character 'loot'. It's a game, it's temporary, it's not real - that's what makes it a game. There's just something 'wrong' with WoW.
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