I was browsing around on the front page of Escapist, seeing if any new articles had been posted, when I noticed an article under "Required Reading" called "Azeroth is Burning". I clicked it and read through, expecting to find it about someone who became disillusioned with WoW as I had years ago. Turns out it was actually about how Cataclysm revitalized the writer's desire to play and explore the World of Warcraft once again, to see all the places he had roamed back in the days of standard WoW and see how much they have change while basking in the warm glow of the memories that once filled the now-ruined landscape that will never be the same as it once was. While it was a very interesting article, I felt it necessary to bring a different side to the argument, one from the perspective of a former WoW player who couldn't get sucked back in.
That's when I noticed that the article had been written waaaaaay back in August of 2010.
As such I decided it'd be best to air my grievances here.
Like countless other souls, I too was utterly devoured by WoW when it first game out. I had loved the WC RTS games and was very eager to throw $15 a month at Blizzard if for nothing else but to continue the story line from where it left off at the end of Frozen Throne. I spent countless hours working my way up from a no-name cadet with naught but rags on my shoulders and a big clumbsy mallet in my hand to being someone of great importance to my faction's cause, having audiences with high-ranking military officers who told me that I was the only one now who could possibly stop (insert dungeon boss name here). Granted, I wasn't so foolish as to believe that said dungeon boss hadn't already had his face crushed in by countless other random adventurers, but still, as someone who actually enjoys the story: I enjoyed thinking that yes, /I/ am the hero that the Night Elves of Desolace had been waiting for.
This magic was lost when I started created new characters to experience other classes, at which point all the heroism of my first play-through had been exchanged for a simple running of the motions necessary to level up "Alright, at lvl 20 I go here, that'll get me to lvl 35 at which point I can go to this zone, that'll get me up to 42 so I can go to Stranglethorn Vale." Gone were the days of exploring caves and new areas, seeking out new life and new civilizations, boldly going where no Undead Warlock had gone before! So that was really the first blow - albeit a small one - against my enjoyment of the game.
The true downfall came when I had finally reached lvl 60 with my warlock and was ready to enlist in an end-game raiding guild. The guild I signed up with was a pretty top-notch bunch who had already conquered Blackwing Lair...I recall getting an entire set of Felheart (think that's what that set was called) minus two pieces on my /trial/ run with the guild. Good lord I was absolutely thrilled! I was now walking around in what was at the time the best possible armor for my class! Woo-hoo! Now raids are more of a social event than anything, just something to do every Wednesday, Friday, and sometimes Sunday if anyone was interested. And so I was actually sucked even further into the game because I actually felt a sense of need and purpose...if I wasn't there to soul-stone the priest for wipe-protection, keep the tank inflated with my imp's stamina buff, and keep the target weakened with curses that opened the door for even bigger DPS from our mages, then the guild's chances of winning were reduced. Obviously they could get by just fine without me, but I still felt like I had a very necessary and important job to do - just as everyone else did - against whatever raid boss we were taking on.
And so I stayed and paid and played and enjoyed myself for a few years. I was there when the gates of AQ opened, unleashing an army of bugs and massive egyptian deities upon the land. I was there when the Dark Portal was rebuilt and the hellish world of Outland was once again linked to Azeroth and the threat of the Burning Legion returned. I was there when Kael'thas betrayed Illidan and sold out his people to join the demon lord Kil'Jaden. Hours of my time just sent to the slaughterhouse, but with each new raid dungeon that came out and with each slaying of Illidan, I began to notice something...something seriously wrong.
I was essentially paying $15 a month to play fantasy dress-up.
As Yahtzee pointed out in his review of WoW, you find yourself asking "Why do you raid?" "To get the best gear!" "And why do you want the best gear?" "So I can raid!" I looked around at all the other warlocks in my guild...in EVERY guild...and realized we were all cookie-cutter print-outs of the exact same person. We might have different talent specs, but even then there's only two or three legitimate builds to make your character the best possible for the role you desire it to play. But in the end: one warlock is just the same as every other warlock. One mage was the same as any other. One warrior was the same as any other. More and more it began to seem to me that the only reason Blizzard releases new material is to keep people playing...to dangle that shiny new armor tier in their faces and say "YOU WANT THIS!" Ok, so I got it....now what? "HELP OTHER PEOPLE GET IT!" Penny-Arcade put out a comic a long while ago when Blizzard released a WoW trading card game that depicted Satan being brought in as an advisor to the Blizzard team, trying to help them get more money. Blizzard Employee: "We've already got them paying us for WoW, but studies show that at certain times people DON'T play WoW...how can we get money from them during such times?" Satan: "Lo, you shall create a trading card game. And the rarest and most expensive of these cards shall have special codes that can be redeemed for in-game content!" Blizzard Employee 1: "That...that's just evil!" Blizzard Employee 2: "HAIL SATAN!" BE 1: "Yeah, Hail Satan!" (those might not be exact quotes, but that's the jist of things).
But I could deal with it, I still liked the social aspect of raiding, so I didn't particularly mind the fact that more and more Blizzard was making itself out to be nothing but a money grubbing company that was riding it's cash-cow as hard and deep as it possibly could. Fair enough, a business has one objective: make a profit. And I don't mind that. So I played it out until the end of Burning Crusade, and it was about that time that Blizzard revealed itself to be not just trying to make a profit, but just being outright greedy. Coincidentally, the straw that broke the camel's back for me didn't even have anything to do with the soul-devouring behemoth known as WoW......it was all about Star Craft II.
SC II is a game that eager players had literally been waiting over a decade for...knowing that it's supposed to come out, that sooner or later they'll have to take a break from this new pet-project known as WoW and get back to making some SC goodness. And huzzah! At last the day had come when they announced that SC II would be arriving within a year! South Korea rejoices with massive festivals and pretty much made the SC II announcement day a national holiday! Eagerly I returned to the Blizzard website on an almost daily basis. Hoping to find some new news, or to find a new unit had been revealed. I, like I imagine many others, was practically drooling over the thought of finally getting to play SC II! Again, while I really enjoyed the multiplayer as a casual gamer, the biggest draw was finding out what happens after Kerrigan stands triumpahnt over all her foes on an infested space platform over the smoldering planet of Char. What was meant by Duran's ominous message in the bonus level? Were the legendary Xel'Naga about return and wipe clean the grand experiment they had started with the Protoss and Zerg? I couldn't wait!
And then that black day came...I hop onto the Blizzard site and find a new bit of news waiting for me. "We just can't fit everything we want to do onto one disc. So we're going to break the game into three pieces each with a $60 price tag and release them all completely seperately from one another." I didn't buy that BS about not being able to fit it all onto one disc, for starters (though having spoken with people who have played the games, the campaigns are apparently quite massive so fair enough). But even so....why sell the games seperately? Why slap a full price on a game that's only 1/3 of a greater whole? A game that, were it made a decade before, would have been sold as a completed product? What would be wrong with releasing a single game with multipe discs? To me, the move to break up a game that fans of the series had been waiting over a decade for and sell it to them in three $60 chunks was just the absolute epitomy of greed. Why did they do this? Because they knew you'd buy it. You've been waiting for so long to get a taste of SC II's goodness that you won't mind paying a total of $180 just for a single RTS game.
It was the exact same as that shiny new gear the next raid update for WoW promised. "Hang with us for two more months and you'll get this shiny new armor!" had been replaced by "Hang with us for five more years and you'll finally own the entire SC II game!" It's a highly anticipated, longly awaited game being dangled on a string right in front of you. The only way to get Blizzard to lower the string is to fork over $60 and even then they only lower the string just enough for you to tear off 1/3 of the game.
It all became clear for me at that point...WoW was itself a soul-sucking, wallet-eating monster. But it had now turned Blizzard into a soul-sucking, wallet-eating monster. So much time is dedicated to the upkeep of WoW that Blizzard might as well change it's company name to WoW. Gone are the days of engaging fantasy stories about adventures beyond the stars or beyond the dark portal. They have been replaced by a company who's sole purpose is to string its customers along, siphoning more money from them in any way they can. To me, they've become nothing more than digital drug-dealers with shady grins, more than happy to give their customers their next watered-down fix....so long as said customers are willing to pay far out the ass for it.
And thus ends my rant on Blizzard. For anyone who actually read all that, I truuly applaud you and thank you for reading.
