WAR is not WoW, but it's going to try to be anyway.
Well, that's my view on the subject. As hard as everyone in the blog sphere is trying to convince everyone else that they have given the boot to WoW or will when WAR finally arrives is under the delusion that WAR will offer them something utterly and completely different. I'm here to tell everyone the truth they are hiding from you.
IT WON'T!
Sorry, but WAR is an MMO. Which means, there will be faction grinding, there will be quests gathered from easily seen quest givers, whether they will have a golden exclamation point over their heads is hard to tell at this point and there will be the all powerful positioning to get the great epic loot. Yes, you will be able to give the evil or good side a great bit of thrashing and you'll be able to capture a capital city (instead of the six that were originally promised) and hold it for a short period of time not that any of this sounds familiar to people on a WoW PvP server.
The problem as I see it, is that people just want something new. Everyone wants to drive a new car, even if its for a short amount of time. That new car feel and smell is awesome. The same is true with new games, people got all excited about POTBS, Tabula Rasa and recently with AoC. Spouting that these games in their own right, will be the answer to WoW. But I can't seem to recall who is still playing these games after spending months hyping them before release?
I hope that WAR is wonderful, but people really should just calm down about the whole thing. It's not going to be a WoW killer, especially with WOTLK coming out around the corner. I can't see 9 million people deciding to jump over to WAR, especially when a new and exciting expansion is getting ready to hit the streets. I think the people that are expect so much from WAR will be very dissappointed if it doesn't out shine WoW. And I am here to say, it just isn't. Because if it wants to succeed it has to do whatever it can, to be as close to WoW as possible without being WoW.
I think excitment about a new game is justified, but I can't understand the animostiy towards WoW in the process. WoW is still a great game. I don't think the graphics are out dated. The design team is always coming up with new and exciting visuals. I believe they will be adding new textures and spell effects to the game thru WOTLK.
That all being said, I do have money down on a special edition copy of WAR. Oh I'm going to play it, but only because it will be new and fun, not because I think it will be a WoW killer or that WoW is ready to kick the bucket, which, personally, I don't understand the thought process of people on that one. Did I mention 9 million subscribers earlier? People that expect miracles from WAR will become very disappointed, and end up, heads lowered, right back in WoW.
My advice, just relax, stop bad mouthing a great game and limit your commits to, "I'm excited about WAR".
That's part of the gamer (or at least MMO gamer) hypocrisy I love to point out. Mind you, I just point it out, I never claim to be immune to it myself! :)
ReplyDeleteWe all complain and whine we want something NEW! Something DIFFERENT! Something INNOVATIVE!
The very moment any has the audacity, the gall, the nerve to actually give us what we whine for, we whine about that too.
DDO is quite different than your run-of-the-mill MMO but holy shit do we whine about that! Tabula Rasa, despite using the same old mechanics concepts, plays totally different but whoah all the complaints! Not a SINGLE game that tries anything NEW, DIFFERENT, or INNOVATIVE ever gets a rousing success from us, the cynical, jaded and snarky MMO vets.
We're much better off if we just admit we probably just want something that's "exactly like this, only different," or more to the point: "I want something NEW that makes me feel like my FIRST again."
Sorry, fellas, life doesn't work that way. You only grow up once. You only have one First Love. You only have one First Time. And you only have one First MMO. Just like a real relationship, it's up to us to "keep the magic alive" rather than behaving like some aging Fonzie trying to hook up with one night stands with all the new hotties hitting the streets.
Couldn't have said it better Oakey. I cant wait for war to actually come out and see what they say after a few months. Speaking of DDO I still need to try it :P I think the 'animosity' towards wow is an attempt to get people to stop playing "that evil game" and start playing the "fresh new wonderful" game.
ReplyDeleteWoW is plenty of fun if your a first timer and I hope it keeps drawing people into teh genre for a long time. WAR will not be so different from every other MMO. I think it might be funner, or it might not be. Time will tell
The truth is when the only game in town was EQ, everyone loved it, worshiped it and never once asked whats on the horizon.
ReplyDeleteIn some cases, less is more, meaning, if we had limited choices we would be better off living with just those.
@Thallian - WAR will be a blast, because it will be new and fresh, but in the end, 5 years later, people will be looking over the horizon for the next thing to be its Killer.
ReplyDeleteJust enjoy the games while you can and stop worrying about what is around the corner, this whole Killer game concept is really crazy.
If you enjoyed playing WoW and your not enjoying it now, why does it have to die for the rest of us? Because a player has moved on doesn't mean you have to criticize and spoil it for the next up and coming player.
As my wife would say "I just don't get it."
I wish and hope that people could get over this syndrome of alwyas looking to the next thing instead of being happy with what they've got. Otherwise they will get to the end of their lives and realize they never spent any of it being satisfied with what they had.
ReplyDelete"I just don't get it either" ;)
Just one side comment to make (the overall point has been covered here and on my blog already)
ReplyDeleteWhy did people raid cities in WoW? (pre BG when open PvP still happened) There was no loot to gain, no bonuses, no rep, no actual way to 'capture' them. Yet people still gathered in groups of 40+, found clever ways to summon that group in, and tried their damnedest to kill an NPC designed not to be killed.
Why go to all that trouble in a game that spoon feed us the 'correct' way to play from level 1?
Because it's a rush. When you break through the other sides defenders, or get swarmed by everyone in the city finding out you are raiding it, its a rush. One that is hard to replicate when facing an NPC, be it Hoger or Illidan. You know exactly what Hoger and Illidan will do, yet you never know when some random lowbie will turn a corner and find your group summoning inside the city, only to /yell and raise the alarm.
All of that, in a game that tried as hard as it could to discourage such behavior. While it feels good to beat a scripted NPC, it feels infinitely better knowing you just outsmarted someone else sitting behind a computer, and that's why a PvP-focused endgame ultimately entertains for far longer than a PvE endgame.
Mythic gets that, they saw it in DAoC, and have fine-tuned it in WAR. That alone is reason enough for the amount of excitement surrounding WAR.
No denying that a game that focuses its End game on PvP will be fun and extremely different. I have no doubt that raiding, oh did I say that word, the capital cities of either side will provide a rush, but for how long?
ReplyDeletePlanetside was the same way, you capture a certain area of land, then in a few days it reverted back to neutral and you start all over again. I believe that DAOC was the same, everything revert back.
I'm sure Mythic will add some interesting side stuff and trophies for your effort, sounds like stuff you would get from honor on WoW, but in the end, that city will revert back to the original owners and you'll have to do it all over again next week. I forget what that sounds like....oh yea grinding.
So, if you repeat a task over and over again, like capturing a capital city ever couple of weeks, its not much different than grinding rep, honor or farming. Because you know what they say about repeating a task over and over again, expecting a different result right?
What I was really trying to say is that WAR isn't going to be any different than any other MMO. Sure it will repackage the likeable areas of other MMOS, like PVP,questing, and item grinding, but it will have all of those things, just like every other MMO.
my point is that bloggers are trying trying to convince everyone that Mythic is reinventing the wheel, but the truth is a wheel is just like every other wheel.
So just calm down and enjoy the your "new" wheel, no need to harass all the other wheels about theirs.
Your comments on the same subject over on Syncaine’s blog inspired me to write a response:
ReplyDeletehttp://serialganker.blogspot.com/2008/07/does-wow-criticism-wow-hate.html