It occurred to me while replying to a recent post at "A wall of Text" on the changes to Wintergrasp, that World of Warcraft is to the MMO community what Putt Putt is to the golf.
I mean, Blizzard has slowly turned WoW into an easy entry point for newbie people who want to dabble in the Virtual world. Sure, some of it's hard, like the windmill on hole 15, but some of the course is just a few rolling hills that with the right amount of aim, can put your ball in the hole with one easy hit.
Wow has become an easy game for beginner MMO players. The management and design team at Blizzard have removed most of the depth and difficulty that was originally associated with the core game, pre BC and made it a grindless, bonus xp questing ground, where you never really touch anything of importance in any zone because your leveling so blazingly fast. It's a drive by and I haven't figured out who is getting shot.
A new player and guild mate, who use to be an avid Guild Wars player, told me that WoW was great and he enjoyed all the mob killing and ganking, but he wasn't being driven throught the game by the story line and he missed that aspect from his days of playing Guild Wars.
Apparently, Guild Wars had the questing and story set up in such a way that it flowed very nicely through the leveling process. Not unlike the way Lotro works with it's vast history and the books of the series. Events were scripted and worked with what the player was doing as he or she leveled up.
I told him that he was in error, that, in fact, WoW had a well crafted story arc designed specifically for each zone and that he had been adventuring in it. He wasn't being driven by it because, with all that fantastic extra xp for turning in quests and the fact that he was in the R.A.F program with a friend, he was only going through, on average, maybe, 1/3rd of the quests in each zone before moving on to the next zone. Therefore, he wasn't getting the entire story arc through the games questing system. He was missing pieces of the story puzzle, so he wasn't seeing the entire picture.
But who needs Lore and history at the lower levels when Lich King is all that matters now. Getting to that end game content where, apparently, it's just so easy to raid the 10 man heroic dungeons that Blizzard had to quickly introduce Ulduar to keep players in the game and happy. What a shame they needed to do this so close after the release of WoTLK. Course to hear them tell it, this was all planned. I just can't buy what their selling anymore.
I don't hate World of Warcraft, I just hate what Blizzard has done to a fine and wonderful game. They have been pounding the crap out of it with their famous Nerf bat that the entire game is spitting up foam every where you look. I don't mind if they put in a Putt Putt course or two, all I'm asking for is a place to play some real golf.
Nice! I don't disagree. It's one of the reasons it has such a draw to people. Sure you can play all day if you wanted to, but you don't need to. You can just hop in and play for a short time and have some fun (we call it, "mini putt" up here in Canada). That is unlike real golf where playing a course takes several hours of commitment.
ReplyDeleteGood one. ;)
WoW has always been "easy". Relative to other games out there. And a large part of it getting easier has to do with the wealth of mods and third party help people depend on to make the game easier.
ReplyDeleteIf people wanted a harder game experience, they would quit the game and play something else.
@Ticker I understand the game was easy, but now it's just ridiculous. It's the difference between playing Monopoly, which is easy, but can be complicated at times or Candy Land, which is stupidly easy for kids.
ReplyDeleteI like easy. I did the grind grind grind with EQ and that was just crazy, but now, its like they are backing up the XP truck and giving it away for free now and it's hurting the game IMHO.
What are you going to do when the band your in starts playing different tunes?
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's time for a new game.
I'm not denying that WoW is getting become a well worn suit that maybe in need of some changing. But right now, I'm enjoying what little of the games integrity is left because I have friends that make the experience enjoyable. If I didn't have them hanging in there, I would have jumped to something else.
ReplyDeleteSadly, I've not found anything to keep my attention long enough to stay with it.
... because most MMOs seem to be mimicking the easiness of WoW in hopes of becoming as successful as WoW.
ReplyDelete:(
I'm sorry, I just don't want to grind slowly through levels anymore. Do I blame WoW for this, sure. But if Blizzard hadn't come up with WoW someone would have because you need to open your game to the masses if you want to be successful, which was something SoE failed when they launched EQ2 and the fact that they made the game Future Proof.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not very fond of upgrading my machine to play a game that I may or may not stay with.
Again, I don't have an issue with the fact that WoW was easy to begin with, but now their main concern is to power level everyone so they can sell their next expansion and that's just silly. SoE, Turbine and CCP don't do that, so why should Blizzard dumb down and already easy game? GREED!
I never really saw much of a story in WoW. It's still fun to play with friends though. Lich King had the most story, I think, from what I played. Lots of appearances by Arthas himself, and he keeps telling you that one day he's going to actually fight you...Which I guess isn't really that great of a story because it doesn't make any sense why he doesn't just kill you each time...but it's exciting anyways. I don't feel the need to criticize WoW; I played for 2 years because I was still enjoying it to the very end.
ReplyDeletepart of the reason I quit the game before the first expansion was the planned changes didn't thrill me. I like real golf, and put put, but not just put put. (usually)
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