The appeal of WoW?

Is it really that hard to not be a fanboy?

i don't think 10 million are playing wow because they're all fanboys. i played it for about a month, and i thought it was pretty fun. i met some nice people, did some quests, etc. it was fun. if it weren't for the monthly fees, i'd be still playing it. and really, what's wrong with idiots understanding the game? is a game good only when the intellectuals understand it?

and it seems as if it has been simplified to a point where a complete idiot can understand it.Dstorm09

That is the appeal of WoW. Most MMO games are a chore to play. I spent 6,000 hours playing EverQuest and I know all about how satisfying it is to take a character from level 1 to the high end raid game in a hardcore MMORPG, but it's still a chore. It was crazy time consuming, difficult, frustrating and often even painful. My time in EQ is easily the best gaming experience of my life, but I had to devote many hours per day every day to making it such a great experience.

The appeal of WoW is that it takes the formula that games like EQ set out and makes it, well, I'm hesitant to say fun, but certainly it makes it casual. There are, clearly, a lot of people who love the concept of MMOs, but they don't have the time or the patience to play something with hardcore character development. That want instant gratification. Quick, easy, disposable fun.

And that's what WoW is. I only spent about four hours playing it, and in that time I realised that it was everything I don't want from an MMORPG. But if I didn't have much free time, or I wanted to get something out of the game right from the start instead of having to invest a few hundred hours first, I'd get World of WarCraft.

WoW is a great game. I played it for 3 years. All classes up to lvl 60 and then 70 after the xpac. WoW is appealing because it appeals to a wide spectrum of people from the gifted PvPer to the PvE enthusiast. There is something in WoW for everyone. The only reason I left is that Blizzard failed to expand at MY desired rate. I got tired of endless rep grinds for gear that will be quickly replaced when WotLK goes retail. There is no real reason to hate WoW. 10 million people cant be wrong.

10 million people cant be wrong.

Cledwyn

Can one person be wrong?

Can someone explain the appeal of WoW to me? I've tried it and it plays just as your typical lack-luster MMO. It feels as if there is no depth to it, the combat is the most repetetive thing I've ever experienced, quests all seem pointless, and it seems as if it has been simplified to a point where a complete idiot can understand it. Honestly, WoW just seems like a complete waste of time (IMO), and I can't understand how people can prefer WoW to its MMO counterpart EverQuest 2.Dstorm09

I will explain to you in bullet form:

• If your friends play it, then you can chat with them and fool around in-game without even leaving the house. You also make many online friends. Since more people play it than EQ, your friends will be more likely to play WoW.
• EQ has a hardcore feeling to it that not many people like.
• WoW is more popular than EQ.
• Whether you are a crafter, pvper, soloer, grouper, hardcore raider, explorer, or other, there is no right way to play the game. You can play it any way you want to.
• Very few games can emulate the feeling of victory after defeating a hard boss or the teamwork required to get through an instance in WoW. Combat most certainly is repetitive soloing, but with a group combat is unequaled.
• Simplicity does not make it a bad game, it makes it accessible to anyone and thus expands the community and thus improves the gameplay through higher populations and higher revenue.
• Blizzard polishes their game very well and releases patches and new content constantly.

WoW is an excellent and polished title.

Wrath of the Lich King may make or break WoW in the long term. depopulated lands of Outland, Azeroth and Kalimdor, forcing players away from alot of rich instances during their levelling experience. The extra time it will take to get a new character to level 80. As it stands Levelling from 1-60 can sometimes be a very solitary experience and seeing most of the instances that add much to the atmosphere and the story is quite difficult as most of the population have 70 Characters and the lower levels are a minority.

So to emphasise your point above, it FEELS like it is more a grind now than it used to be in regards to levelling characters.

Personally I missed all the 60 Endgame content due to time restraints and real life and will now struggle to see Kharazhan, Gruuls Lair, Serpentshrine Cavern and the Black Temple before Wrath of the Lich King, once that's out, I beleive that the only end game content I will reach in time will be the level 80 content. So in regards to that I feel a little robbed about already missing out on Molten Core, Onyxia and all, and not seeing anything until 80. Certainly as an above user put it, needs to be played LONG and hard every day to optimize the experience, casual gamers, you have been warned.

That's my two cents

[QUOTE="Cledwyn"]

10 million people cant be wrong.

mfsa

Can one person be wrong?

Well 23 million people bought the first Spice Girls album.

wow, particularly post-bc, has become a very approachable mmo. with its ease of gameplay, cartoony graphics, and now that its only $20, i can definitely see why people keep joining up.

and really, what's wrong with idiots understanding the game? is a game good only when the intellectuals understand it?

fireandcloud

i've played wow on and off since launch i really started to notice the shift towards the common, unexperienced player, and it hit its climax when they introduced sparklies over quest items. really? is it that hard to read the quest text and figure it out on your own? it has nothing to do with being an intellectual and everything to do with thinking. ever since that was introduced i feel insulted whenever i walk up to something sparkling. needless to say, i quit.

and to whoever said '10 million cant be wrong' thing, that number includes the amount of people that have created an account, not the active players, so i'd bet top dollar that nearly half of those were people who played since launch, and have since quit or got burnt out. after all, a group of idiots were never wrong, right?

The old tried and true carrot-and-stick formula, plus the social aspects of it. It's more of a cooperative game than it is competitive, although I do realize there are people that like the competitive aspects of it that were added in later. There really aren't many games that are geared towards cooperative play while not requiring you to be "hardcore" at the game at the same time, since generally in those games you are playing against other people.

At the same time, compared to EQ, you don't need to practically live in the game to feel like you are getting anywhere. Again, I think it comes down to not requiring you to donate an inordinate percentage of your time to the game in order to get anything out of it.

[QUOTE="Cledwyn"]

10 million people cant be wrong.

mfsa

Can one person be wrong?

How can anyone be wrong on their own personal opinion of something?

I havn't played WOW.. was tempted at once stage to try the demo but ive heard its very large and the patches id have to download are even larger which would use up my bandwidth.. and id have none left to play the 14 day trial.

[QUOTE="mfsa"][QUOTE="Cledwyn"]

10 million people cant be wrong.

Rattlesnake_8

Can one person be wrong?

How can anyone be wrong on their own personal opinion of something?

I havn't played WOW.. was tempted at once stage to try the demo but ive heard its very large and the patches id have to download are even larger which would use up my bandwidth.. and id have none left to play the 14 day trial.

Simple. If their opinion is different to mine, they're wrong.

Jeez, don't you know anything?

Disclaimer: mfsa may or may not be suffering from one or more crippling mental disabilities and therefore nothing he says should be taken seriously.

I'd ratrher be stupid and having fun than bored out of my gigantic brain.capthavic

While it was funny when Yahtzee said it, the line doesn't hold up very well against basic logic. A person with a gigantic brain wouldn't be bored by a complicated game, he'd enjoy it. The stupid person would be bored by the complicated game.

[QUOTE="mfsa"][QUOTE="Cledwyn"]

10 million people cant be wrong.

Piesics

Can one person be wrong?

Well 23 million people bought the first Spice Girls album.

So tell me what you want, what you really really want,
I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want,
So tell me what you want, what you really really want,
I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really
really really wanna zigazig ha.

You got spiced.

[QUOTE="mfsa"][QUOTE="Cledwyn"]

10 million people cant be wrong.

Piesics

Can one person be wrong?

Well 23 million people bought the first Spice Girls album.

I was one of those 23 million! :lol:

I have every album and I have the movie in Blu-Ray and watch it on my PS3 all the time. ;)

Its fairly good fun, meet quite a few good people, and the world has been crafted almost perfectly; interesting and fun to explore. It can be time consuming like many MMOs but character progression does seem a bit more rapid compared to others out there, which gives you an incentive to keep going back.

And how is WoW more of a waste of time than EverQuest 2? Double Standards eh?

I'm putting my money on the fact that it is very simple and easy to play and until the very highest levels you can level up at least once a day if you play for an hour or two. Thats what appeals to me, anyway. I don't want to waste ten thousand hours getting to the level cap just so I can enjoy the game and actually play it rather than go through endless boring hours of grinding, I don't have the time to do that.

I think this is the part where someone is supposed to yell "GTFO of my internets, casual player!":P

[QUOTE="Piesics"][QUOTE="mfsa"][QUOTE="Cledwyn"]

10 million people cant be wrong.

Cledwyn

Can one person be wrong?

Well 23 million people bought the first Spice Girls album.

So tell me what you want, what you really really want,
I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want,
So tell me what you want, what you really really want,
I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really
really really wanna zigazig ha.

You got spiced.

And it was a pretty good Album! lol!

There is no appeal. The millions of players are just stupid Blizzard fanboys, and the GOTY awards along with dozens of AAA ratings accross the board from reviewing sites/publications were simply purchased by Blizzard. The game is garbage, and anybody who plays it is stupid.

Is that what you wanted to hear?

For me, I played Warcraft 3 and had the Frozen Throne expansion as well, and honestly, I kind of fell in love with that little world, the races made so much sense and their motivations seemed so real, so when I heard of the RTS which I loved in the form of a MMORPG, how could I say no? You still have many of the same amazing races, I kind of miss being able to have control over the Naga sometimes...but it's the same beautiful world. But as to why other might enjoy WoW, I believe that the massive and generally very friendly community plays a big factor, let's face it, WoW does have the biggest fan base and, from my experience, their are a lot more friendlier people playing WoW.
Jalh222

I was the same way playing the RTS titles. Going from that to imerssion into the world was pretty cool. Not to mention if you are a fan of the books and lore I would assume the game would be a perfect fit. Also I failed to mention in my previous post, Blizzard did a great thing by adding instant gratification to an MMO. You level fast, you get decent gear and the rep grinds for other gear is pretty good too. WoW is unlike any other MMO. Blizzard has paved the way of a revolution in MMO PC gaming. You cant really argue with that.

[QUOTE="capthavic"]I'd ratrher be stupid and having fun than bored out of my gigantic brain.mfsa

While it was funny when Yahtzee said it, the line doesn't hold up very well against basic logic. A person with a gigantic brain wouldn't be bored by a complicated game, he'd enjoy it. The stupid person would be bored by the complicated game.

It's your logic that's flawed. Just because a game is complex doesn't make it fun, regardless of intelligence. And a "stupid" person can still have fun with a game even without grasping every nuance, such as a pro micro managing everything and a casual player just massing units.

Also there is a difference between complex and needlessly complex. To use the Witcher as an example, not giving any in game info on how to research stuff is just dumb. And if a game feels like work then something's wrong.

[QUOTE="mfsa"]

[QUOTE="capthavic"]I'd ratrher be stupid and having fun than bored out of my gigantic brain.capthavic

While it was funny when Yahtzee said it, the line doesn't hold up very well against basic logic. A person with a gigantic brain wouldn't be bored by a complicated game, he'd enjoy it. The stupid person would be bored by the complicated game.

It's your logic that's flawed. Just because a game is complex doesn't make it fun, regardless of intelligence. And a "stupid" person can still have fun with a game even without grasping every nuance, such as a pro micro managing everything and a casual player just massing units.

Also there is a difference between complex and needlessly complex. To use the Witcher as an example, not giving any in game info on how to research stuff is just dumb. And if a game feels like work then something's wrong.

And the game being simple doesn't necessarily make it fun, either. You cannot imply that a less intelligent person will have fun with a simpler game and not also imply that a more intelligent person will have fun with a more complicated game. More intelligent people tend to appreciate and enjoy more complicated things. They're often called nerds or geeks. There are two raging arguments on page 1 of these forums right now arguing that multiplatform titles are dumbing down gaming, and that PC gamers want a greater depth and complexity.

That quote is presented from the point of view of a less intelligent person. Flip it around. It works - or, rather, doesn't work - both ways.

And, I doubt you've played The Witcher. Yahtzee is the only person - besides you, but you're a myna bird by the looks of it - I've ever seen complain that The Witcher was too complicated. And Yahtzee's job is to complain about things. I don't consider myself a particularly intelligent person, I'm not very experienced with the RPG genre and I definitely didn't read the manual, and I had no trouble picking up any aspect of The Witcher.

He's clearly not fond or or familiar with roleplaying games, and that he describes The Witcher as a MMORPG is more than proof enough of that.