Too Much WoW Hate?

[Gauwin]

"But Wow was a step backwards. I understand you CAN work as a team, but it didn't appear to have the same immersive effect as that in FFonline, and not as critical."

Well, then the only problem there is that you can work as a team in wow, for a bonus, but when it comes to the REAL game, other then leveling you toon, you need to work as a team, or else you are not going to do anything.

You reach 70. What do you do? Oh ill pve. Oh wait, i need a party for that.
Ill pvp. oh wait, i need partners for arena teams, or co-works in bg's.

WoW has the default of not taking 0-69 seriously, meaning you can solo it easily, bypassing many content. But when you get to 70, you have to GROUP up to actually PLAY what the leveling has been preparing you for.

Low level instances? Quests? All a way to make you explore the areas, give you some inside in some storys, get your rep up with that faction and reward loots to help you level, and also greats amounts of gold if your not a spender, that will allow you to learn you class skills progressevily, and allow you create a pocket full of gold for your level 70 expenses.

 

[Melty Blood]

Whats irritating me about the Wow players mentality, is they keep refraining to "Oh you can do so much with this and that", and ignore the big thing that some people would prefer not to be on a treadmill, I'd definatly be willing to say "You know what? I don't like this, and anything like it. I don't like the entire concept or gameplay associated with it. You may like it, and that's fine, but I just DON'T" Some argue that as soon as you get to level 70 the gameplay redeems itself, but if I buy a game, the first half of the game of balls-breaking monotony shouldn't have to be redeemed by the second half. Again, some people like that stuff, and thats FINE, but I don't.

As painful as it is to admit, they must've done something right to warrant 10 million subscribers.

... I just had one oh them Idears...

 

[Melty Blood]

Melty Blood, if you create another WoW clone I will have to murder you in your sleep.

If I die in my sleep won't I not know the true terror and fear of being trapped in a room crying and awaiting my execution, and/or lamenting the torture (And possible rape) to come?

Or perhaps the terrifying experience of being terrible mutilated and unable to move, left in the wood, and having rats, among other animals nibble at my shivering body, mistaking it for a fresh corpse, as tears run down my face as the pain being too excruciating to move?

You can do a lot better then killing one in one's sleep, I know you can.

 

[Terramax]

Gauwin and Lampdevil, you both make valid points, and I guess what it boils down to is what you play these games for.

When I play online games, I play them to meet people on them. If I can't interact with people on online games, I don't see any point in making it online when it would be just as simple to make offline.

Fair enough, FPS games online are justified (or too justified as I end up getting snipered on games like PC Halo literally the second I'm spawned) but I just cannot take MMORPGs without creating some good friends.

FFXI was a good game for me as I was a white mage, whom where often treated like gold dust. I did have problems finding PTs many a times, but I was more valuable than other jobs.

What I failed to mention in more detail is whilst I created these parties, I made some great many friends. There was one woman who was so fond of our little community she started asking us all about her boyfriend who was treating her like dirt.

Over time I was able to find like minded people, just like I do on certain forums, and that is why I stuck with FFonline for 9 months until my coursework went downhill.

But I can understand this game isn't for everyone. Just like WoW isn't for everyone.

I don't hate WoW. Although I do resent one of my closest friends having seeming disappeared off of the face of the earth because that game is literally all he does when he's not working...

 

[Lampdevil]

I don't hate WoW. Although I do resent one of my closest friends having seeming disappeared off of the face of the earth because that game is literally all he does when he's not working...

Haven't we all lost friends and loved ones to this game? My rude crack about "only having sex on Tuesday" isn't too far from my own personal experience. An aquaintance of mine had her car break down, and needed to rely on her boyfriend to get her to and from work. There was a snowstorm. And a minor medical emergency. And the boyfriend was too busy running his guildmates through Wailing Caverns (that's a low-level instance, BTW) to get up off his worthless behind and go get her.

I theorize that if it weren't WoW rendering these people into dysfunctional sacks of flesh, it would be another game. But when you take into account WoW's popularity with folk that wouldn't normally touch an MMORPG... yeah, it's probably messed up a lot of folks that might have otherwise been fine.

 

[[HD]Rob Inglis]

This is true with many games and gamers. I myself have prejudices about some games, even though I haven't played some of them. Perhaps seeing for myself the actual game-play might change how I perceive these games.

 

[ComradeJim270]

I played WoW on a friend's account for a while (he was a very busy person, so there was a lot of time where I could get on and he couldn't) and found that playing WoW made me sleepy. I shit you not. I nearly fell asleep every time I played it... like... it somehow paradoxically kept me enthralled before my screen while simultaneously boring me to sleep.

Don't ask me to explain why this occured, because I have no clue.

I had the same experience when playing WoW. I think it's because of the whole "it's gonna get better once I level up" thing, as if maybe by getting through monotonous crap, we'll end up having fun afterwards. It's like I was convincing myself that by digging through a mountain of turd, I'd eventually find a speck of gold.

However, that's a load of crap, especially with RF's insane grinding. I remember playing another Mumorpuger, RF Online for 2 hours (felt like 3 or 4) before I finally said "fuck this," and deleting it from my computer.

Yeah, I think I got to about level 24 before I just sort of shrugged and went "Meh, gonna go play Guild Wars, now, because this game is mindless and I just wasted hours upon hours to increase a number in my stats".

 

[Sayvara]

Pouring acidous comments on World of Warcraft falls into the same category as Microsoft-bashing and US-hatred: they are the biggest, fattest, richest targets out there. Not to say that some of the criticism isn't warranted... but mostly it's just because they are an easy, gratuitous target.

Currently in WoW I'm working my way up with two characters at lvl 25 and 34 respectively. While WoW isn't unique and or original in all aspects I can certainly see its appeal: it's a very mature (in the sense meaning "complete") product with plenty of content; it has a balanced level of complexity and pacing making it readilly available and appealing to everyone between 12 and 99 years old while fitting both casual slowpokes and hardcore power-levelers alike; all while being fairly lenient when it comes to hardware requirements. Anyone can play WoW.

Other MMORPGs I have played/am playing are DDO, LotRO, CoX and a touch of SWG (and NWN on a public RP server). While WoW doesn't excel in everything and the others can beat WoW in individual areas - DDO for diversity in making a character build and wonderfully crafted quests; LotRO for breathtakingly beautiful graphics, the epic storyline and fantastic Tokien lore behind it; CoX for toon building that lets me make a huge-busted superheroine in spandex clothing and other such fun in a campy Adam West's Batman-style superhero setting; and SWG for being Star Wars - World of Warcraft is just like Microsoft in that they are the one that manages to be good enough in the most areas while at the same time being accessible to a great many people.

So... is there alot of WoW bashing? Yes there is. Is it warranted? Yes and No.

In the end it's a subjetive matter of taste and preference as to which one you like best to play. If someone doesn't like your choice and calls you mean words for your choice... well then they can go eff themselves and that is the end of the discussion.

Personally I'm holding my breath for Age of Conan because me and me guildies have grand plans for creating an RP haven in that game. But Funcom better get those damned bugs sorted out before I choke! *mutters impatiently*

/S

P.S: I'm not american... in fact I'm scandinavian. I still think that people hate the US way too much.

 

[ComradeJim270]

I just can't get into any MMOs (Guild Wars is not quite an MMO). They make me feel like Sisyphus... and, going with that analogy, I know that if I do push that rock over to the other side of the hill, I'll have nothing to do on that hill anymore, or at least nothing worth paying for. It's not just WoW, it's MMOs as a genre that make me feel like this.

 

[SeraphCentral]

Here's my take on WoW.


People see it as nothing but grinding till you get 70 then it's like... what now?
People see this as mindless, pointless, and a waste of time and money, and if you've never played the game or you've just never really liked MMO's where grind is a factor (for the record, most MMO's have some form of grind) then of course you won't see the point of spending hours on end just to say "DING!" in guild/say/general etc etc then this is probably your view of it.

Unfortunately however, numbers do not lie. Although we can attribute million or so accounts to RMT's and 2nd accounts, there are a considerable amount of people who do pay to play this game. And really IMHO, if it's your first MMO, then it's really easy to get addicted. It's quick, easy, and by God it's fun as hell to see that bar fill up for a level.

Is it the best MMO ever? Not in my opinion. Is it the most addicting? That's to be seen, I'm not sure if we've had any couples breaking up over WoW (see Everquest) or any dead children yet (see Everquest again). Is it fun? I thought it was. At least till I got to 70 and just sort of fell out of it. Is it worth 15$ a month? Well, let's look at it this way, if you got a new next gen game for let's say 50-60 dollars, you would expect that game to keep you for at least a couple weeks before getting a new one. For 15 bucks a month, you get a game that can't exactly be beaten.

All in all, it's really up to what you want in a game. But I do agree with the OP that if you're gonna try to say something about WoW at least pick up the damn game (the WoW game on it's own I think is now 20 bucks with) and go play for a week or two before you start saying that it sucks ass and it's all about the grind and whatnot. Come to think of it... you can probably say the same about video games, books, and movies. But that's a different topic.

Anyway, just thought I'd give my two cents.

 

[Melty Blood]

Is it the best MMO ever? Not in my opinion. Is it the most addicting? That's to be seen, I'm not sure if we've had any couples breaking up over WoW (see Everquest) or any dead children yet (see Everquest again)

If I'm not mistaken, Wow holds the record for largest online funeral where some asian Kid played consistantly for three days, without eating/sleeping/whatever, and just died.

 

[defcon 1]

RPG's like that almost never make a good impression. You start out with a few skills and do the same thing over and over again until you acquire enough exp to gain a variety of abilities and figure out more strategies(Final Fantasy). I have people who played WoW and hate it, because they can only tolerate it for a day before canceling the subscription. In a way I can't blame them because psychological the first impression is the most significant.

Never played it but I like the idea. Meet new people (weed out the numbskull's)and implement teamwork across a world(although divided due to the lack of space-age technology, is still one world). The road is a lot longer because theres 'more' to look forward to. New areas to explore people to meet, abilities to learn. It's like a whole new world rather than a division of levels where you just start a new match and do it over again. and thats the impression I get. Games like this have to have good artwork and design to go with it, and that's one thing Blizzard's good at.

About the battle system. Some people find it lame to point and click and in a way I can see how that's lame but I enjoy games like Chess, Hold'em, Euchre, Warhammer and so forth. Those games are more data driven and (for me at least) I really like those kind of strategies. In a way RPG's are pretty much just tabletop games with a makeover and Tolkien creatures.

I want to play the game but I also don't want to spend $15 a month. Just like Warhammer, it'll suck all my cash.

One thing I can't figure out is how it's so addicting. Sure every game has their hopeless group of fans but games like WoW and Everquest seem like a public issue. Has there been a determined cause for such a large group of addicts?

 

[Melty Blood]

You can do a lot better then killing one in one's sleep, I know you can.

I could and, in fact, if you look up my IRC quotes on Google, you'll know just how terrible I can be.

But, for the sake of not getting another thread closed, I'll avoid that

Ahh, the magic of interpretive murder (And we'll leave it at that)

 

[sapient]

One thing I can't figure out is how it's so addicting. Sure every game has their hopeless group of fans but games like WoW and Everquest seem like a public issue. Has there been a determined cause for such a large group of addicts?

I guess after playing WoW for a long time (release -> October '07) I'm surprised I didn't get too sucked in by the game. Yes, I was addicted at certain points but the easiness of me letting go of the game truly surprised me.

To really see how a person gets addicted you have to look at their gameplay experience. There's always something to do in WoW - raiding, grinding, PvP, 5 mans, heroics, something. And if you have too much free time for just one day you can fall into the trap of constant play.

Say you're a Warrior who's just hit level 70 and you want to go down the PvP path for gear. Your first action (as was mine) is to pick up your flying mount for a measly 1100 gold. Not too hard, considering you can make 100g/hour at 70. Your second job is to gear up for PvP so you can move onto the hardcore parts of the game. So, where to start? Easy! Farm some primals and Blacksmithing/Mining skill to get your epic crafted weapon! A weapon is the most important part of a warrior, so you have to do this!

As such, the player starts grinding with a sense of purpose.

This can take several days or even weeks (Blacksmithing is ungodly and difficult to level). Okay, got your Thunder? Sweet! Now, you have to go and get a few decent epics to start out your arena journey. Great. Pick up some tanking gear and run a few instances - get some gear. There are heaps of instances at 70 to choose from, and they've all got great gear.

With so much to do, the player starts to get addicted to the game. The player wants to systematically reach his or her goal, and therefore keeps playing more and more. The goal is so far away, however, the player has to donate more of their time to reaching this goal before everyone else gets there and ruins it for the player. WoW moves quickly if you think smart, and anyone can get to the top easily.

So you've picked up some S1 gladiator gear from battlegrounds, some select gear from instances and you're decked out to start arena.

Wait! Your weapon needs an upgrade!

So you walk off and do some instances to get primals and upgrade your Thunder to a Deep Thunder. Another few days down the drain.

It's time to start Arena. Find a few good players, make a team (farm gold for the charter) and start fighting. After a few weeks, you have the points to buy yourself an S2 set, and after a month or two you're completely decked out in S2 and epics. Brilliant. Now for S3.

This can take more than just a few months. S3 requires rating as well as points, so your team has to be good. You spend more and more time practicing in skirmishes and battlegrounds. Your days slip by to Tuesdays as you watch your points and rating go up. I'm making it sound easier than it is, but for a few people I know this was a very time consuming and harsh experience.

Finally, you've picked up your full S3 set after months of Arena, Battlegrounds, Dailies and other assorted PvP and PvE. You've clocked 60+ days of play time on the game. You're decked out in full epics. You can kill what you want, where you want, how you want.

What to do now? Find a raiding guild and go DPS. Go through this with another character. Wait for Season 4 arena.

Fuck.

So as you can see, the process will ultimately lead on and on until Wrath of the Lich King, where it starts again. The game traps them with a grind, leads them with a sense of achievement and forces them to start over again. The process takes months, but Blizzard gets your money.

The tanking route which I took was severely shortened by players kissing my ass (tanks are rare). But it's somewhat the same - grind, gain, grind, gain, grind, gain, grind, gain, repeat/wait. It's an endless spiral, and if you ever get bored you can always walk into Darkshore and pound some newbies.

 

[Um...TE]

I enjoyed the ride to L70. I enjoy quests, story, character development. It's endgame that I can't stand. Wee! We got the first boss down to 40% after a mere two hours of game play. Let's do it all over again tonight! I'm just not obsessive-compulsive enough to find running the same instance over and over and over again, doing the same dance at each major, scripted encounter, fun.

Some people love it, though. They really enjoy seeing forty people act as a cohesive group to accomplish what is only barely possible for them. I can understand and appreciate that.

But to earn my $15/mo, I demand to see new content. Not the same ol', same ol' week in and week out, over and over and over again. When I hit L70, I called the game "won" and cancelled my account. It was late spring and I wasn't about to spend my summer playing WoW.

 

[AsbestosKidney]

I only kept playing for a good while because it was a nice way to chill with some friends, and because I sort of enjoyed the levelling process due to a lot of funny references in quests and some areas of the game looking beautiful in spite of a horribly outdated graphics engine.
My enthusiasm died as the repetition increased in the endgame.

And for all its corny clichés, I kinda liked the original Warcraft universe probably due to a severe case of "I played the original games when I was a kid"-nostalgia.

The idea of main characters within the story getting killed repeatedly in raids makes me die inside. I don't hold a grudge against people who play the game though. If they're having fun doing it, good for them.

What I like about Guild Wars is that A: It's fast-pased, B: character customization is much more flexible and C: it doesn't require as much of my time. Naturally it's a matter of taste..

 

[Magnus Of Weelilplace]

Eudaemonian,

Points heard, and accepted as valid.

I don't think I'll be picking WoW up any time soon, but it doesn't seem so "scruby" to me.

*note*

"scruby" is a Guild Wars PvP term for PvE "scrubs" who run absolutely horrid skill/attribute builds and use retarded combinations because they think they are cool/don't know anything about the game mechanics. My view of WoW was a giant society of people that simply PvE'd and ran whatever skills they used there in PvP as well, because "I t3h ub3r tanq and cannot be destroy'd cuz i r haxorz!!!"

wait...is WoW like that? if so im not interested after all.

 

[Stargoat]

I, like Sapient played wow for ages (for release)and i origionaly started due to my liking to the warcraft story (which is now complete shit
I'm also the kinda gamer who takes things and likes to get the most out of it
so i didnt rush through
Anyway i got to 60 amnd went raiding ect the BC came out
all cool new place new quest
the screwed up by making everything over powererd and making all your old gear usless
and with the addition of getting to 58 so you can go to outland made (mainly) lvls 50-58 extremly boring and unfun to play (instaces were crap because the only people you could find were either around lvl 50-53 so you were to weak, or you got a lvl 70 which just made it boring)
Anyway i quit wow a couple of months ago for many reasons. i got 70 and continuasly grinding for rep wasnt much fun, the removal of massive group raids put me off, and well it was just really really boring. Also i dont like what the did with the new races (i mean all the elves leaving and joining there mortal enemys because of some over zealious commander)
as for the rise or the lich king, they will have to pull some serious crap to fix what they did wrong.

 

[Gauwin]

Magnus

"My view of WoW was a giant society of people that simply PvE'd and ran whatever skills they used there in PvP as well, because "I t3h ub3r tanq and cannot be destroy'd cuz i r haxorz!!!"

No, not at all. If you wish to PVE to the extreme, you need to take on a viale spec on your class, and you need to rework all your gear, over, and over, again. (yes, i mean it.)

You could take the PVP gear to pve, but you would miss a lot of dps/healing status depending on your class, and you could take your pve gear to pvp, but you would be 1shotted due to low amount of stamina and resilience(resilience is a new stat introduced in TBC, that reduces a % of the damage done by a certain critical hit, a % of you being critical striked, and a % of damage taken by Dots (damage overtime spells) , capping at 25% , 5% , 5% respectivetly(lolspelling?)

And the "using the same skills in PVE that in PVP"? Hello no. WoW arenas is all about good Cooldown usage, teams setups, ... you dont CC a boss in a raid do you?

But then again, its my opinion. If you want to learn some more about how complex wow pvp can get, i can suggest a good, enjoyable and fun to watch movie that gives an insight to PVPING as a Mage.

Link: http://files.filefront.com/I+Suck+At+PvPwmv/;7995292;/fileinfo.html

skip the first minute or so if you wanna go right into the pvp section

 

[halbarad]

I myself have clocked over 700 hours on WoW. Around 200 of those hours were honestly spent exploring, socialising and general idleness.
One weekend, during a fortnight of weather that can only be described as horrendous (couldn't leave the house at all) i only left stormwind to travel to Ironforge, Darnassus and Shattrath.

Around 100 hours of my time was spent in raids. With end game content, including Tier 6 gear, i found that the game had lost all appeal. Zul'Aman? Well the simple fact is, it's nothing new. World of Warcraft has hit a brick wall in the fact that until they release the thing AFTER Wrath of the Lich King, i wont have any reason to do anything. The Wrath of the Lich King content will be a new class, buildings in the PVP maps that can be destroyed, which will be same-same after no time. 50% reduction of experience requirements and 50% increase of quest experience from 1-60 (it's not been implimented yet, it will only be implimented with Wrath of the Lich King) which is due to level 80 being released.


Either way, i've sold my world of warcraft account for a nice round £300+. I spent a total of £120 on the game, so i made some money.
My main reason for selling my account is that i was addicted to the game. The amount of time i spent on it was preposterous. I'd come home from college or work, depends on the time we're talking about, then sit in front of my PC with my only meal when i got home. Sandwiches and Whisky. I didn't have time for other games! Nevermind other people.
I'll also admit that i'm not a socialite. I still only go out socializing every so often, more than before, but still a very small amount for my age (19).

On the game though. The fact is, nobody in the world can say that WoW isn't boring. Even i got bored a number of times. I found that for hundreds of hours, i could either farm money or create another character to go through the same rigmarole again, just with a different set of skills which amounted to me still hating 99% of the other people in the game.
The game has infact slaughtered, raped and repeatedly snuck back into the home of the Warcraft story. It has left the story with no place to go but back into the arms of a repeated sex offender. Any chance of Warcraft 4 being new or even being made is so slim that it's almost saddening, as the games were fun - immensely fun! All they can be now is a RTS version of World of Warcraft.

Oh, and on the complexity of PVP, especially arena - not a chance.
An ice mage can be used in the same setup for both PVE and PVP. It's a simple cycle of freeze, blast, freeze, blast. This is always enough to slaughter warriors, rogues and almost any other class. The only classes useful against mages are Hunters and Druids.

Oh, and for PVE damage a warrior can be MS or Dual Wield spec. Reccomended DW. For PVP MS. But, i've both been, and seen others, using either spec in both. One is slightly more successful, but the other still works.
There is hardly any complexity in the game now. Back in the olden times of Pre-Burning crusade, a lot of the game was complex. Now, the game is sadly as complexed as running headlong into a brick wall. Also another reason for me quitting the game - i've mastered every single class in the game.