The success of World of Warcraft cannot be denied, even by the likes of me. The game has taken over the MMO world in a way that has never been seen before. Nine Million subscribers? It's hard to imagine that many people paying a monthly fee to play this wonderfully mediocre game. That's right, I went there and chances are you either agree with me or fiercely disagree with me. There seems to be no middle to ground to Blizzards monster, and I'm perfectly fine with that, because I'm right.
Before I get into tearing this game to pieces, let me start by informing the readers on my credentials. Most of you know me as an avid FPS gamer, however, when I'm not FPS'ing, it's MMOs that take up my time. From Shadowbane to Lineage 2 to World of Warcraft, I've played pretty much every major MMO that has come out in the past six or seven years. WoW is the game on the firing block right now, and I've been playing the game on and off since release. Multiple level 60s and a level 70. Massive amounts of PvP experience and I've done more endgame PvE than 85% of the paying users.
With that said, let the hate begin.
When it comes down to it, Blizzard has done one thing right that has probably been the one and only reason for the success of their game. The learning curve and overall experience of the game is quite casual, however, rather than upping the difficulty or adding more content, they allow the hardcore players to invest more time, instead of skill and exploration. These two things are exactly what has caused the World of Warcraft boom. Casual players can be casual and still get loot. Hardcore players can do the same thing as casual players but invest more time a week and get the loot faster. I fully support making money, and Blizzard has certainly created a cash cow for themselves. But no matter how many people play it, it doesn't make it a good, original, ground breaking MMO. Nine million people CAN be wrong.
The first thing I always hear out of people's mouths is: "Oh the game looks so good!"
Yeah, does it?
If by "so good" you mean it looks like Warcraft, than you are absolutely correct. Cartoon graphics and bad texturing sure is good I guess. I mean, don't get me wrong, it isn't hard on the eyes but it isn't all that pretty by any means. It's actually just average when you think about it. With the technology we have today, WoW looks quite standard compared to other games out there. It certainly has the Warcraft look and feel to it, but over all, it doesn't do anything to merit having "good" graphics.
Maybe they're talking about how the levels are very well designed and feel so immersive?
No, that can't be right because they don't. Walking through the World of Warcraft is like walking through Disney World. Every zone feels like a theme park with over dramatic weather effects. Don't get what I'm saying? Please, let me explain. Let's take the Northern Region of Eastern Kingdoms for example. You have: Hillsbrad, Alterac Mountains, and the Plaguelands all right there in a nice little line for you to explore. Granted, Plaguelands is a little too high for someone just walking into Hillsbrad to explore, but that's besides the point.
So you get to Hillsbrad, a cute little farmland with green fields and blue skies. Continue walking on that dirt path and you'll come to Alterac Mountains, which really isn't in the mountains at all. It's actually just up a small little incline. But wait, there's snow and yetis and ogres all waiting to bash your skull open?! Wasn't this a little dramatic? If that wasn't bad enough, keep walking for another fifteen seconds and you'll run into the Plaguelands. A dead decaying forest with giant zombie spiders ready to web you while other mobs kill you.
That's quite the transition. It's fantasy though, they can get away with it. Yeah, I guess so, but when other games actually slowly transition from one extreme to the other, it feels a bit more immersive than just saying "HEY CROSS THIS IMAGINARY LINE AND IT'S WINTER!" I mean, let's take Lineage 2 for example. Working from the bottom of the map to the top of the map, the world slowly got darker and darker until it became that death riddled zone. You didn't just see drastic weather and terrain changes, they made it feel like a real world. Not like a theme park.
While on the topic of the different zones, there's a couple quick things I want to address. I'll start with the Plaguelands. Do people really not see how much of a cop out these two "zones" are? I'm pretty sure anyone would agree that pre Burning Crusade Blizzard just got lazy and decided to break up one zone and make it two. They both look the same and they are both equally mind numbing and boring to look at. It really is silly for them to claim these two areas as two different experiences because they aren't. The only thing I experienced playing through the quest lines here, was the experience of feeling a brain tumor form.
Next up! Instances. I don't mind it to an extent, but it does get old quick. I hate the idea of being protected from alliance or horde because Blizzard is a bunch of god damn carebears. The game's focus is on PvE and not PvP, which I will gladly explain later. However, I have a major beef with instanced PvE areas because it takes the excitement and thrill away. I want open dungeons with people fighting over some mobs. I know a lot of people are probably carebear PvE'ers and that's fine. I don't hate you, but you should really cancel your MMO subscriptions and go play something single player. All the whining you god damn carebears do is the most annoying thing in a MMO ever.
"DON'T KILL HIM! HE LEFT ME ALONE WHILE I WAS LEVELING!!!" STFU! I don't care if he left you alone, he's an enemy. His name is red and that means I have every right to kill him. Go play on a PvE server, fruit!
Anyway.
The bare bones of any MMO is the leveling system. When a game releases or a server opens, the race to be the first level capped character, the pride and joy of any MMO right? Oh wait, WoW is the only one that has these silly races. Granted, there's always talk of this and that, but when a game makes it as easy as WoW does to reach the max level, does it really matter if you're the first? I mean, the fastest recorded time to 70 was something like 4 days. That doesn't mean anything, seriously. It's just kinda silly and pointless. Even the biggest noob with no experience ever will eventually hit the level cap shortly after you did, and you'll feel like an idiot, because you got all hopped up on cigarettes and red bull in hopes that everyone in a mediocre game will know your characters name. Not even your name, your characters name.
Okay, maybe not everyone jumps on that band wagon and that's a good thing. However, aside from Shadowbane (lol), WoW is easily the easiest of the easy games to level up in. Seriously, any idiot can do it and I've seen plenty of idiots do it. There is really nothing to it and everyone will eventually be 70. Just because you were first doesn't really mean anything because in a week or two, you'll be lost in the sea of people who are also your level.
I'm not sure how else I can describe the leveling system, other than being too easy. I mean, it literally doesn't take very long at all. It's just a grind of doing nonsense quests that are probably more frustrating than Dryvby's wife getting screwed by the cops.
So you've reached level 70, what do you do now?!
Start another grind, awesome!
There's obviously two options when you hit 70, you can PvE or AFK. I don't know what most people choose but if they were smart, they would pick AFK'ing. What is AFK'ing you ask?
AFK'ing is the act of going into the instanced battlegrounds to gain honor so you can get gear. The funny thing is, you can sit there and do nothing while 9, 14, or 39 of your fellow players do all the work for you. Though, chances are at least half of those numbers have the same idea you did. So really, you are sitting there at your computer hitting the space bar every 4 minutes so you don't get afk and just let that honor build up. It really is simple to get decent gear and start your quest for bigger and better things.
Upon writing this, last I heard Blizzard was going to implement a system so AFK'ing was a lot harder and that's fine and stuff. It doesn't change the fact that obtaining PvP gear is incredibly simple and just plain silly. You sit there AFK'ing these battlegrounds for a few weeks and than you start to arena. Which is more of the same, except you actually need to spend 4 or 5 minutes of your time actually doing something, even if that something is the same thing over and over again. The PvP system is really just a glorified version of the PvE system, except you have the option of killing people instead of mobs.
Just like PvE, the whole incentive is to get gear. Nothing else. There isn't anything more than gear and a mount to get from PvP. Blizz tried throwing in some world PvP things that just failed miserably because they don't care. In games like Shadowbane (lol) or Lineage 2, there was at least incentives other than gear to PvP.
Lineage 2 for example. You would level your character while obtaining components to craft high level gear. Once you obtain that high level gear, you begin PvP'ing. The reason to PvP other than guild feuds, which are easily the coolest things ever. Some of my best memories in Lineage 2 were when my guild was warring with other guilds. So much fun. Anyway, other than that, you PvP'd to control a castle, which in turn allowed you to control a city. While in control of that city you would be able to control the "tax" from vendors, and your guild would make money. Than once every couple days you would have to defend your castle from your enemies trying to take it over. PvP in Lineage 2 was about politics and economy.
PvP in World of Warcraft is about getting gear.
It's quite brilliant when you think about it. Blizzard has managed to brainwash nine million people into doing the same thing over and over, for the same rewards.
Let's move on to the lack of content that WoW has, shall we?
Pretend you decided not to PvP and you joined the best PvE guild you could. You spent your time gathering the best blue and epic items from Heroic Instances and you're ready to hit those awesome raid instances with.. 10 other people. Quite a step down from back in the day when it was 40 man, but god damn that was a cluster-f. So you get past that silly 10 man raid instance after a few weeks of grinding it out and countless hours. Now you take a step up and you're doing 25 mans, awesome! Another few weeks go bye and you're finished there and doing another 25 man. Has it occurred to you yet that you're just doing the same thing over and over against slightly different mobs?
I'm not going to pretend that everyone can do every raid instance, because they can't. Any idiot can do a 10 man, but it does take some sort of ability and concentration to handle the 25 mans. Not a lot, but it does take some.
Let's pretend you are in one of those power guilds and you're doing all the raid instances. Raiding 3 or 4 nights a week to hopefully beat out the other 24 people so you can get your next piece of gear. This is just not appealing to me, sorry. I did my share of raiding and going through this pain staking process. It's greatt and amazing when you do get that next piece of gear, but after the first couple times of killing that boss. Is it really as rewarding? Or once again, are you just grinding it out and wasting precious hours of your life?
Okay, let's pretend you are one of those players who just can't seem to get into the right guild who can do everything. So you're stuck playing with a bunch of morons who don't know how to play their c|ass and decide the proper course of action is to blame you for their short comings. You're stuck wiping on the same bosses every night and you just can't progress, but you know you aren't going to get into one of those power guilds with your current set of gear. How long does it take before this process becomes ridiculous?
So what do you Do? PVP! Find a friend and start killing players in instances rather than mobs. Get that gear you've always wanted and than do it all over again for the next piece of gear.
I was sucked into this for a long time and couldn't get out of the loop. I tried and was successful for months at a time, but the lack of other MMOs coming out or MMOs I haven't ran thin, kept me coming back to WoW.
This is one of the reasons I believe WoW has so many players. They did bring in a lot of new people to the MMO world and that's fine. But the lack of other quality MMOs coming out has also contributed to the success of WoW. Tabula Rasa? Laughable. Lord of the Rings: Online? Give me a break. Neither of these even come close to being a good MMO.
That's right, I just implied World of Warcraft was a good MMO, because it is. It just also has a lot of short comings. It's good up until about two or three months after you reach the level cap, than you find yourself sitting in town not knowing what to do.
I honestly don't think anything will topple WoW for quite awhile, I do however think that Warhammer Online will have the ability to at least make a dent in it. Fantasy world MMOs work, Tabula Rasa, Rising Force Online. They try and take on a genre of sci-fi fantasy and it's going nowhere. I don't know why this is, but they just can't seem to pull it off.
There is 3 games that come to mind when I think of WoW killers.
Warhammer Online.
Knights of the Old Republic: Online
Elder Scrolls Online.
One of these is confirmed, the other two just rumors, even though everything points to Elder Scrolls Online being a go. I believe that either of these games could at least make a dent in the WoW community. I can only imagine how many people are playing it because there is simply nothing else to play.
The above mentioned games may never have nine million subscribers, but I'm sure they could take a few million away from the giant cancer known as World of Warcraft.
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