World of WarCraft Ranking: F
I’m sure this’ll get some hate. WoW is probably the most successful MMORPG in history and I’m giving it the lowest rating I can. I tried to play it several times because my friends were into it and Blizzard was giving free trial periods and every time I got really bored, really quickly. At one point I set my character to follow my friends and then I alt-tabbed into a web browser and went to random sites while my friends played.
I get the concept. I really do. When I first heard of Diablo II on Battle.net, I thought it was a wide-open world with every player adventuring and meeting up with one another – basically, an MMO world, and I was surprised to find that each Battle.net game was limited to 8-player instances. I wondered how cool it would be if Blizzard made a wide-open world, and then WoW happened.
With that experience, I now think MMOs don’t really work. Again that seems insane given how wildly successful WoW was, but hear me out. All MMO worlds promise a dynamic, ever-changing world that responds to the player and offers total immersion. But, by its very structure, MMOs can’t do that. If, say, I play an MMO, and I kill some boss, that boss must respawn or else anyone playing after me won’t be able to kill that boss. As such, MMO worlds by their very structure must be extremely static.
That’s not why I’m giving WoW such a low rating, though. The reason comes from WoW being structured to cause addictions. I’m sure we’ve all heard stories of marriages breaking up and people needing therapy because of WoW. Gaming shouldn’t be that – gaming should be a fun diversion from real life, not a crippling addiction that messes up your life.
WoW has a subscription, which means Blizzard needs to provide incentive for players to keep coming back for more. They can either keep making interesting content and new storylines, or they can implement boring grind quests where players spend hours monotonously farming for points or gear or whatever. Guess which option is easier, and the option Blizzard chose to go with?
Grinding in an RPG appeals to many people because it provides a sense of power. In real life, if you spend 10 hours at work, it’s very likely that at the end of those 10 hours, you’ve gotten nothing out of it except a bunch of fatigue and frustration. In an RPG, if you spend 10 hours killing monsters, at the end of those 10 hours your character will be stronger than he was before. He’ll have gotten better equipment, or more in-game currency to buy better equipment, or he’ll have more experience points. People like that because it provides something that is sorely lacking in the real world.
When you implement that in a standard RPG, like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, it’s fun. Players grind for a bit, become stronger, and overcome the last boss and beat the game. You get a sense of accomplishment and a sense of completion. See my Final Fantasy shrines for a good example of that.
When you implement this in a game designed to suck players in for an indefinite period of time, there’s no end in sight, no accomplishment at the end, and you’re basically exploiting the human need to have their effort rewarded – for monetary gain, no less. It’s low, and it turns gaming into an infinite loop of monotonous addiction. This is NOT what gaming should be about, and I find this sort of philosophy to game design quite disgusting.
GG, Blizzard. GG.
I’m sure this’ll get some hate. WoW is probably the most successful MMORPG in history and I’m giving it the lowest rating I can. I tried to play it several times because my friends were into it and Blizzard was giving free trial periods and every time I got really bored, really quickly. At one point I set my character to follow my friends and then I alt-tabbed into a web browser and went to random sites while my friends played.
I get the concept. I really do. When I first heard of Diablo II on Battle.net, I thought it was a wide-open world with every player adventuring and meeting up with one another – basically, an MMO world, and I was surprised to find that each Battle.net game was limited to 8-player instances. I wondered how cool it would be if Blizzard made a wide-open world, and then WoW happened.
With that experience, I now think MMOs don’t really work. Again that seems insane given how wildly successful WoW was, but hear me out. All MMO worlds promise a dynamic, ever-changing world that responds to the player and offers total immersion. But, by its very structure, MMOs can’t do that. If, say, I play an MMO, and I kill some boss, that boss must respawn or else anyone playing after me won’t be able to kill that boss. As such, MMO worlds by their very structure must be extremely static.
That’s not why I’m giving WoW such a low rating, though. The reason comes from WoW being structured to cause addictions. I’m sure we’ve all heard stories of marriages breaking up and people needing therapy because of WoW. Gaming shouldn’t be that – gaming should be a fun diversion from real life, not a crippling addiction that messes up your life.
WoW has a subscription, which means Blizzard needs to provide incentive for players to keep coming back for more. They can either keep making interesting content and new storylines, or they can implement boring grind quests where players spend hours monotonously farming for points or gear or whatever. Guess which option is easier, and the option Blizzard chose to go with?
Grinding in an RPG appeals to many people because it provides a sense of power. In real life, if you spend 10 hours at work, it’s very likely that at the end of those 10 hours, you’ve gotten nothing out of it except a bunch of fatigue and frustration. In an RPG, if you spend 10 hours killing monsters, at the end of those 10 hours your character will be stronger than he was before. He’ll have gotten better equipment, or more in-game currency to buy better equipment, or he’ll have more experience points. People like that because it provides something that is sorely lacking in the real world.
When you implement that in a standard RPG, like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, it’s fun. Players grind for a bit, become stronger, and overcome the last boss and beat the game. You get a sense of accomplishment and a sense of completion. See my Final Fantasy shrines for a good example of that.
When you implement this in a game designed to suck players in for an indefinite period of time, there’s no end in sight, no accomplishment at the end, and you’re basically exploiting the human need to have their effort rewarded – for monetary gain, no less. It’s low, and it turns gaming into an infinite loop of monotonous addiction. This is NOT what gaming should be about, and I find this sort of philosophy to game design quite disgusting.
GG, Blizzard. GG.