- Joined
- Apr 20, 2005
Many people ask me why I have such an undying hatred for the popular mmorpg World of Warcraft, and I have quickly noticed
that explaining all the reasons I hate this game to just one person takes quite a bit of time. So, to make things easier,
I have created this article, which, proves beyond a doubt that WoW is one of the worst game ever made in recent memory.
To understand how WoW fails on so many levels, you have to look at the game, not only from its progess though a timeline,
but also at the game design at its core. In this chapter, we're going to look at the reasons why WoW failed as a Player
versus Player (pvp) game, starting from day one onward.
Early on, several problems arose, namely the fact that nearly all player versus player combat was consensual, even on
"pvp" severs, in which many zones were safe, and a player could only be attacked if he or she were "flagged" for pvp.
Also, there was little to no death penalty if you were killed by a player. Aside from a quick run back to your corpse,
there was nothing to lose from being killed. No loot, No equipment damage, nothing. You could be killed millions of times
and nothing bad could ever happen to you character. This takes all the fun out of pvp, because in order for a game such
as this to actually be fun, you need risk and reward. Risk being that fact that you could lose an item or something else
valuable in combat, and reward being the fact that you can take said item from your enemy if you win. This is what
separates these types of games from first person shooter games such as Counter Strike, and Unreal Tournament. What you
work for, and what you can lose, is the fun, its the thrill of a gamble. Another glaring problem that took me some time
to realize was the lack of an impact players can have on the game world. No player actions can change anything, there
is no politics, no capturing cities, no player owned buildings or other assets. Every single server is exactly the same
as any other for the simple fact that nothing can be changed. If you kill a racial leader, he simply respawns. Capture
a city, NPC guards simply keep respawning. This leaves players with a static, boring, and unchangeable game world.
But we choose to keep playing World of Warcraft, mainly becasuse we were promised improvements in the PVP aspect of the game,
in the form of the Honor System and the Battlegrounds. Yes, the game was still incomplete when we were leveling our
characters.
Later, the Honor System was introduced into the game, and it was a disaster. The system offered rewards for players who
killed a certain amount of other players. The rewards themselves were meaningless, but the major downfall of the honor
system is that fact that a reward was added on to a game that had no risk at its core. So we are left with a system
of reward, but no risk. Which led to players doing mindless sucicide runs in the attempt to "farm" more and more players
in yet another endless "grind." The end result was yet another timesink. Currently there are three major timesinks, all
divided into lesser timesinks. 1: The 1-60 level sink, 2: The post 60 instance item farming 3: The Endless PvP grind.
Keep in mind that none of these activities are actually any fun at all, and doing any one of these thee things is 100%
of the game. If you are logged into the game, you will be doing one of these three things. Basically, you are playing
the game in the hopes you can make your character more powerful, but there is nothing fun to do once your character is
more powerful, because once you've done everything, the only thing left to do is go do something in the hopes of making
your character even more powerful. In the end, all you are doing is increasing the power of your character, so you can
increase the power of your character. The idea is insane and flawed at its core. Why do something that isn't fun, so
you can do something that is even less fun when your done?
The Battlegrounds was a promised solution.
Unfortunatly, the "BGs" were the worst thing to ever happen to the game. The system forced all players into instanced
pvp matches, hence killing off all world pvp. All pvp suddenly became instanced. consensual. boring. Even worse, the
BGs attempted to mimic such FPS games as Unreal Tournament with game types such as CTF. (capture the flag) The
problem is, true fps games are much more fun, then an rpg. The rpg cannont compete in terms of gameplay, so the only
reason for a gamer to choose a rpg over a fps for this type of gameplay is the risk and reward aspect. As you know,
WoW has absolutely no risk, so the die, respawn, die, respawn, die, mentality of the WoW Bgs makes it the most bland
and boring PvP game I can imagine.
A glaring problem that existed in the game from day one, was the absolutly terrible PvP class balance. the development
team constantly tweaked the player classes, making some classes far stronger than others. The end result was a
unbalanced ratio of classes, with most players choosing to play the stronger classes. (Rogue for example) While the
weaker classes were underplayed. (Warlock)
Even if the classes were somewhat balanced, it would do nothing to solve the problem of the item driven system for
character power, which rewards players solely on how much time they spend playing the game, rather than the players
skill. The game, from beginning to end, requires no skill whatsoever.
Now that this is out of the way, it begs the question, why do millions of players play World of Warcraft? The answer is
simple. the game was hyped up pre-release by a respected, and well known game company, the game has a smooth engine,
that is user friendly, and easy to operate. The visuals, although they may strike my eyes as Disney land garbage,
are appealing to children. The same applies to the simple controls. then there is the fact that players do not
wish to waste the time they're already infested in the game. All in All, WoW is a flavor of the month game, that will
not stand the test of time, once players complete the grinds and realize that huge mistake that they've made.
-Mike Schoder
that explaining all the reasons I hate this game to just one person takes quite a bit of time. So, to make things easier,
I have created this article, which, proves beyond a doubt that WoW is one of the worst game ever made in recent memory.
To understand how WoW fails on so many levels, you have to look at the game, not only from its progess though a timeline,
but also at the game design at its core. In this chapter, we're going to look at the reasons why WoW failed as a Player
versus Player (pvp) game, starting from day one onward.
Early on, several problems arose, namely the fact that nearly all player versus player combat was consensual, even on
"pvp" severs, in which many zones were safe, and a player could only be attacked if he or she were "flagged" for pvp.
Also, there was little to no death penalty if you were killed by a player. Aside from a quick run back to your corpse,
there was nothing to lose from being killed. No loot, No equipment damage, nothing. You could be killed millions of times
and nothing bad could ever happen to you character. This takes all the fun out of pvp, because in order for a game such
as this to actually be fun, you need risk and reward. Risk being that fact that you could lose an item or something else
valuable in combat, and reward being the fact that you can take said item from your enemy if you win. This is what
separates these types of games from first person shooter games such as Counter Strike, and Unreal Tournament. What you
work for, and what you can lose, is the fun, its the thrill of a gamble. Another glaring problem that took me some time
to realize was the lack of an impact players can have on the game world. No player actions can change anything, there
is no politics, no capturing cities, no player owned buildings or other assets. Every single server is exactly the same
as any other for the simple fact that nothing can be changed. If you kill a racial leader, he simply respawns. Capture
a city, NPC guards simply keep respawning. This leaves players with a static, boring, and unchangeable game world.
But we choose to keep playing World of Warcraft, mainly becasuse we were promised improvements in the PVP aspect of the game,
in the form of the Honor System and the Battlegrounds. Yes, the game was still incomplete when we were leveling our
characters.
Later, the Honor System was introduced into the game, and it was a disaster. The system offered rewards for players who
killed a certain amount of other players. The rewards themselves were meaningless, but the major downfall of the honor
system is that fact that a reward was added on to a game that had no risk at its core. So we are left with a system
of reward, but no risk. Which led to players doing mindless sucicide runs in the attempt to "farm" more and more players
in yet another endless "grind." The end result was yet another timesink. Currently there are three major timesinks, all
divided into lesser timesinks. 1: The 1-60 level sink, 2: The post 60 instance item farming 3: The Endless PvP grind.
Keep in mind that none of these activities are actually any fun at all, and doing any one of these thee things is 100%
of the game. If you are logged into the game, you will be doing one of these three things. Basically, you are playing
the game in the hopes you can make your character more powerful, but there is nothing fun to do once your character is
more powerful, because once you've done everything, the only thing left to do is go do something in the hopes of making
your character even more powerful. In the end, all you are doing is increasing the power of your character, so you can
increase the power of your character. The idea is insane and flawed at its core. Why do something that isn't fun, so
you can do something that is even less fun when your done?
The Battlegrounds was a promised solution.
Unfortunatly, the "BGs" were the worst thing to ever happen to the game. The system forced all players into instanced
pvp matches, hence killing off all world pvp. All pvp suddenly became instanced. consensual. boring. Even worse, the
BGs attempted to mimic such FPS games as Unreal Tournament with game types such as CTF. (capture the flag) The
problem is, true fps games are much more fun, then an rpg. The rpg cannont compete in terms of gameplay, so the only
reason for a gamer to choose a rpg over a fps for this type of gameplay is the risk and reward aspect. As you know,
WoW has absolutely no risk, so the die, respawn, die, respawn, die, mentality of the WoW Bgs makes it the most bland
and boring PvP game I can imagine.
A glaring problem that existed in the game from day one, was the absolutly terrible PvP class balance. the development
team constantly tweaked the player classes, making some classes far stronger than others. The end result was a
unbalanced ratio of classes, with most players choosing to play the stronger classes. (Rogue for example) While the
weaker classes were underplayed. (Warlock)
Even if the classes were somewhat balanced, it would do nothing to solve the problem of the item driven system for
character power, which rewards players solely on how much time they spend playing the game, rather than the players
skill. The game, from beginning to end, requires no skill whatsoever.
Now that this is out of the way, it begs the question, why do millions of players play World of Warcraft? The answer is
simple. the game was hyped up pre-release by a respected, and well known game company, the game has a smooth engine,
that is user friendly, and easy to operate. The visuals, although they may strike my eyes as Disney land garbage,
are appealing to children. The same applies to the simple controls. then there is the fact that players do not
wish to waste the time they're already infested in the game. All in All, WoW is a flavor of the month game, that will
not stand the test of time, once players complete the grinds and realize that huge mistake that they've made.
-Mike Schoder
