With the release of WoW Cataclysm only days behind us it is becoming apparent that critics of World of Warcraft are crawling out of the wood work to voice their displeasure with the newest expansion or WoW in general. Now this is nothing new for high profile games but I was still shocked by the proportion of negative comments floating around Gamespot and similar websites, many of which are posted by individuals who admit to have never played the game. A large number of arguments seem to come from two points. The first being that with the release of Cataclysm, and possibly previous expansions Blizzard has sold out the once great game of World of Warcraft for the sake of making more money. Which I consider to be an extremely naive belief, as Blizzard is of course like all major developers a company that exists to make a profit, the idea that WoW was at one time not intended to make money is completely false, and the fact the WoW is changing in order to attract more players and maintain current ones should not surprise anyone. Also it has been necessary for WoW to change as no one would be playing it anymore if it was the same game it was in 2004.

The second common argument that I came across was that WoW is a waste of time and money and people are pouring too much time into getting gear that exist only in a digital world or gaining levels. To which I can simply say that people would not be playing WoW if they were not enjoying themselves. I admit that many players spend more time on WoW than is good for them, but this can be said of many games. For example many people become addicted to Call of Duty playing endless hours in an attempt to unlock new weapons or raise their rank or level. So to say that WoW consumes more time than other games and people who play it are wasting their lives is simply a stereotype.

what to do with my new found status?...

I'm sure that putting "first blog entry" into the topic of my blog will turn away any potential readers (as if anyone would be reading this anyway), but i am far to self conscious to put something up that others can see without being able to fall back on an excuse for poor or boring writing. so for those who have actually decided to keep reading....um....so video games? Well i just finished my first play through of Vanquish, and I'm pleased to say that i found it to be well worth the money. In fact i was inclined to write a review for it, but found that you can only write a review on gamespot if you have achieved level three. So that killed most of my motivation, but i still felt like writing something. Even if it was just to see if I would get close to leveling up, and here i am. I will save most of my thoughts on vanquish for when i am able to write a review, but i will say that vanquish was a blast, despite the fact that it took me less than six hours to complete the campaign, and there is no multiplayer to speak of I was mostly satisfied with the product that is vanquish. I think that a large part of why i enjoyed this game had to do with the fact that it brought me back to the games i enjoyed in my younger years, when things like story and emotional connections to characters never got in the way of gameplay and having a good time. whether games made several years ago actually had less in the way of story or my adolescent mind simply cared so little for these things that i didn't even notice it, i can only say its probably a little of both, but regardless vanquish made me feel a way that i had not felt about a game in what seem like years. don't get me wrong i like games with a lot of story. In fact I've found my taste shifting further toward story heavy games recently, but it did get me thinking that maybe some large budget games with all the production values and fancy writing added in an attempt to enhance immersion have lost something, and we've forgotten about what made us love games in the first place. Or maybe I'm getting too sentimental, and i just like thinking back to when i was 12 and life was simple. anyway something to think about perhaps. for anyone who read this, my apologies. but personally i hope this is the first of many posts