Why WoW sucks.

[tenchi86]

Not everyone plays at the same time, but if alliance have triple the people odds are that around triple the alliance then horde will be on. Anyway World PvP is coming, you can already play it on the test servers. As for this thread. It's simply because everyone has an opinion and when you have someone come in and for no reason put down a game someone who likes it will get ticked and respond, then the other side responds back. It goes on and on because simply put you are not going to change someones opinion in an online forum argument, so people just repeat that same things over and over.(myself included of course)

 

[Janus67]

Janus the latter part of my post was in reply to someone else who said a good game is measured by success, sorry I didn't separate my post properly.

When I play BF2 I think about the ranks, for sure, but you have to admit the very beginning of starting a character in WOW is repetitive - as you have limited weapons. I know this is to create a learning curve, however, in BF2 when you count every weapon in the game, the unlocks are minor additions, most of the content is there at the beginning.

Blizzard is milking those who like the Power Rangers mode of gaming - getting better stuff, rather than starting out with most if not all the items straight away. BF2 is a sandbox game, with the addition of unlock-able weapons, it is not a leveling game like WOW. CS is not a leveling game, it is a sandbox game. They are all very different from WOW. WOW has very linear gameplay compared to say HL2 because you can't interact with the environment which means there is less choice and therefore less variation in the gameplay.

In short I respect your opinion, but WOW is not a game designed around fun and play, it is designed around work, do this to get this.

again, comparing FPS games to an MMO is like apples to oranges. It isn't the same thing and have completely different play styles. I understand that the world in HL2 can be changed because of the wonderful physics (source) engine, although many games do not offer such interactive environments (most Quake3-engine games) where shooting anything doesn't do anything around you, and doesn't even leave bullet holes. Besides the point that I find many FPS games to be very linear...giving you one path and one objective to complete, HL2 (although somewhat linear, but giving different ways to complete the same objective) is out of the ordinary. Many games (Brothers in Arms comes to mind) that are very linear, that you will most likely not beat the level unless you go around, flank this group, then proceed ahead by giving the correct orders. It becomes quite repetitive/work-ish if you think about it by solving the same puzzles the same way.

I will admit, some parts of WoW are work-like. The profession system (in a way) can be seen that way, although many [read: most] MMOs have a crafting/profession system as well, so that can't make WoW stand out beyond them. I don't think you should be simply bashing WoW, but the entire MMO genre as a whole if you find you do not like a work-like game, because most games contain a similar fashion of playing, although some are more/less indepth than others. WoW just tried to take the best and drop the worst of previous games that came out before it to make it easily accessible by veterans and newbies alike.

I will admit again that I wish it was more changeable, but seeing how the entire world could be taken over by the Alliance in many realms (a 3:1 ratio is quite strong) that it could ruin part of the game for any non-60 player because they can't fight back against the overwhelming odds. World PVP is coming, although I am weary of the benefits (some don't seem really worth it yet, but maybe they will re-work their plans to make it worth doing instead of BGs).

 

[shard]

If you dont like the game, then dont play it. I cant stand WoW so I dont play it. Ugh.

 

[Octofister]

I feel the same way you do Edward. I think we should make a country song called "Momma's don't let your babies play mmorpgs"

lol great song (the original cowboy one I mean)

 

[Rattle]

people who subscribe to pay to play are paving the way for a world where we will never EVER own any software we pay for, and that would really suck and i think wow is really stupid to boot.

 

[Janus67]

people who subscribe to pay to play are paving the way for a world where we will never EVER own any software we pay for, and that would really suck and i think wow is really stupid to boot.

the reason to pay the fee is because of the services/updates/support -- the same thing can be said about Xbox live.

 

[El-Scotto]

people who subscribe to pay to play are paving the way for a world where we will never EVER own any software we pay for, and that would really suck and i think wow is really stupid to boot.

paying to keep out cheaters/hackers, for new content added, if thats the future its fine by me

 

[tenchi86]

the reason to pay the fee is because of the services/updates/support -- the same thing can be said about Xbox live.

Exactly. It may be overpriced based on bandwith/paying the people to code, monitor the game. Though they are there to make money and the price is pretty much universal for all MMOs.

 

[Edward78]

A really good article. I tried the WoW trial for 14 days and I just couldn't stand the grind. I asked my friends who played WoW religously, and they told me "wait until level 20 or 30, when you start raiding, PvPing, etc". What?! Whenever I play a game, I want to have fun. I don't want to take a week to several weeks to actually start getting into the fun. I had the same problem with Lineage II where you had to be high level to enjoy the game.

PvP adds nothing to the game really, it is just a afterthought feature in the game. No real strategy to it, really it is pointless to raid, & in PvP you can't loot. Now there is the "Honor System", but that just gives you points so you are allowed to buy stuff, & I think you have to PvP like 24/7 or your rank falls. So in other words it is a no risk, no reward system.

 

[tenchi86]

Not true. Firstly you can loot in PvP, I would say around 10-20 greens are dropped each round of AB. Besides that the gear you can unlock is pretty good. When I was bored I used to go play a few BGs(Battlegrounds), by the time I hit 60 I was already a decent rank. From that point I grinded the BGs and after about 2 weeks unlocked IMO one of the top sets of warlock gear in the game.

 

[Edward78]

Not true. Firstly you can loot in PvP, I would say around 10-20 greens are dropped each round of AB. Besides that the gear you can unlock is pretty good. When I was bored I used to go play a few BGs(Battlegrounds), by the time I hit 60 I was already a decent rank. From that point I grinded the BGs and after about 2 weeks unlocked IMO one of the top sets of warlock gear in the game.

In BGs you can loot, I might come back if that happened in world PvP. BGs suck cuase there are 3 per server how many people play on a server 10,000+. That sounds fun for me waiting X hours in a BG line.

 

[soundfx4]

I don't feel like reading every single post so if this has already been mentioned, I'm sorry. To be honest, I didn't even read everything the original poster posted. I read the first sentence or two of each paragraph to see what he was mad about, and I came to this conclusion.


The Why WoW sucks thread is missing something very important.

Another reason WoW sucks is because it's a rip off. 15 dollars a month may not sound like much, but that really adds up. And to top it off they charge you for the game as well. I did some math and came up with some interesting results. I actually sent an e-mail to blizzard billing support with the following information in it:

this has been slightly edited for use in this post.

All rates are per month

Subscribing players = 5,000,000
Subscription fee plan A = $15/month
Subscription fee plan B = $12/month (with year subscription)

5,000,000 * 15 = $75,000,000 a month gross

PHEW! That is a lot of money to take in for one month! WOW! (no pun intended)

Now I'm going to look at the worst case scenario for 5,000,000 subscribers.

5,000,000 * 12 = $60,000,000 a month gross

That is still a LOT of money, so now I'm going to create a theoretical situation. In this situation, let's say that there are only 2 million wow players and the subscription fee is $12/month; much worse, right?

2,000,000 * 12 = $24,000,000 a month gross

It looks like I just can't make that number small.

Enough of the gross income, I'm going to make some estimates for blizzards monthly expenses on this one game, and find an estimated net income for the wow operation.

I will start with the best case scenario of $75 million a month.

Monthly Expenses:
OC-192 (overkill, I know, but I'm trying to prove something here) = $300,000

I spoke with a bandwidth.com representative to get this roughly estimated price; I didn't just pull it out of my head, so it is fairly accurate. And besides, I know blizzard isn't paying that much for a connection to the internet because OC-192 lines are only used for the largest backbones of the internet, and OC-192 is way more bandwidth then blizzard needs for all the wow users combined.

Staff = $1,600,000

I believe this is also too much money, as I based this on figures I pulled out of my head. I'm assuming about 200 employees total; that includes IT staff, phone support, etc. I really don't think blizzard even has 200 WOW employees because every time I find out how many employees a video game development company has, I am surprised by how low the numbers are. Usually less then 50, so I gave that number a quad boost just to be safe. I'm also assuming a salary of $96,000 a year per employee, which I know is inaccurate, as telephone support staff usually only makes anywhere between $20,000 and $35,000 a year, and even your highest paying IT employee probably only makes about $100,000 to $120,000 a year. I use the word only very loosely, $100,000 a year is a lot of money even in "rip-off" cities like New York, and LA. What I'm trying to get across here is that my estimated $1.6 million for staff should be way over what blizzard actually pays for their entire WOW staff.

Electricity, other utilities, building lease, etc = $5,000,000

I have nothing to base this estimate on; I'm just throwing a number out there.




CEO and board of directors = $1.7 million for the board and $1.25 million for the rich b***ard CEO.

I based this upon an estimated 10 members of the board and one CEO. Each member of the board "earning" (I used quotes because they aren't earning anything, they are getting money handed to them on a silver platter, which is why I hate them, but that is another story) about $170,000 per month. And the CEO probably "earns" (don't even get me started on that guy) $1.25 million per month.



Time to add everything up: 5,000,000 + 1,600,000 + 1,700,000 + 1,250,000 + 300,000 = $9.85 Million dollars of estimated monthly expenses.

More math: 75,000,000 - 9,850,000 = $65,150,000 estimated net income per month.

If you dont like the game, then dont play it. I cant stand WoW so I dont play it. Ugh.

The following is COMPLTELY UNRELATED!


hahah, awesome avatar shard!! I've never actually watched any more then the first two episodes, but that show is HI-larious! What's the name of the little girl again? I forget..

 

[AMDforlife]

I agree on some aspects, disagree on others.

 

[Gongo]

The Why WoW sucks thread is missing something very important.

Another reason WoW sucks is because it's a rip off. 15 dollars a month may not sound like much, but that really adds up.

you're kidding right? 15 a month adds up? so does my partying on the weekend where at any 1 time i'll drop $60 on drinks in a club with my friends. 15 a month? if you think that's expensive you need to get a job or a better job. Hell If i just stay in 1 weekend i'll save 4 months of playing time. 15 a month is 50 cents a day. Thats 1 coke a day.

I guess game design, lost opportunity cost, and future patch and server maintanence is free right? Study a little business before you post such ignorant comments. I mean you'd think they designed the game out of the goodness of their hearts for the gaming community. The bottom line is, they charge what the market will supply. Other MMO's, if they started charging would probably tank because the game and maintanence suck compared to Wow. If anyone thinks WoW is bad, they obviuosly have never played another MMO.

 

[Janus67]

you're kidding right? 15 a month adds up? so does my partying on the weekend where at any 1 time i'll drop $60 on drinks in a club with my friends. 15 a month? if you think that's expensive you need to get a job or a better job. Hell If i just stay in 1 weekend i'll save 4 months of playing time. 15 a month is 50 cents a day. Thats 1 coke a day.

I guess game design, lost opportunity cost, and future patch and server maintanence is free right? Study a little business before you post such ignorant comments. I mean you'd think they designed the game out of the goodness of their hearts for the gaming community. The bottom line is, they charge what the market will supply. Other MMO's, if they started charging would probably tank because the game and maintanence suck compared to Wow. If anyone thinks WoW is bad, they obviuosly have never played another MMO.

I don't understand what you mean at the end of your second paragraph speaking of (if other MMO's started charging), because they do charge (on average) about $15 a month as well...

oh, and I agree, it isn't a ripoff at all, although if it was $10, $5, or $0 a month would I complain? no, but I take it that they patch things and fix problems with their weekly updates that it is worth paying for instead of getting 1 patch to fix a major crashing bug in 2 months as happens in some other games from different developers.

 

[soundfx4]

you're kidding right? 15 a month adds up? so does my partying on the weekend where at any 1 time i'll drop $60 on drinks in a club with my friends. 15 a month? if you think that's expensive you need to get a job or a better job. Hell If i just stay in 1 weekend i'll save 4 months of playing time. 15 a month is 50 cents a day. Thats 1 coke a day.

I guess game design, lost opportunity cost, and future patch and server maintanence is free right? Study a little business before you post such ignorant comments. I mean you'd think they designed the game out of the goodness of their hearts for the gaming community. The bottom line is, they charge what the market will supply. Other MMO's, if they started charging would probably tank because the game and maintanence suck compared to Wow. If anyone thinks WoW is bad, they obviuosly have never played another MMO.

Looks like you're the ignorant one here. I covered all the cost, if you knew how to read, you would have seen that!


btw, you've made the list, congrats.

 

[soundfx4]

oh, and I agree, it isn't a ripoff at all

and that is exactly why they get away with charging that much, because people think it's "reasonable"

 

[El-Scotto]

I don't feel like reading every single post so if this has already been mentioned, I'm sorry. To be honest, I didn't even read everything the original poster posted. I read the first sentence or two of each paragraph to see what he was mad about, and I came to this conclusion.


The Why WoW sucks thread is missing something very important.

Another reason WoW sucks is because it's a rip off. 15 dollars a month may not sound like much, but that really adds up. And to top it off they charge you for the game as well. I did some math and came up with some interesting results. I actually sent an e-mail to blizzard billing support with the following information in it:

this has been slightly edited for use in this post.

All rates are per month

Subscribing players = 5,000,000
Subscription fee plan A = $15/month
Subscription fee plan B = $12/month (with year subscription)

5,000,000 * 15 = $75,000,000 a month gross

PHEW! That is a lot of money to take in for one month! WOW! (no pun intended)

Now I'm going to look at the worst case scenario for 5,000,000 subscribers.

5,000,000 * 12 = $60,000,000 a month gross

That is still a LOT of money, so now I'm going to create a theoretical situation. In this situation, let's say that there are only 2 million wow players and the subscription fee is $12/month; much worse, right?

2,000,000 * 12 = $24,000,000 a month gross

It looks like I just can't make that number small.

Enough of the gross income, I'm going to make some estimates for blizzards monthly expenses on this one game, and find an estimated net income for the wow operation.

I will start with the best case scenario of $75 million a month.

Monthly Expenses:
OC-192 (overkill, I know, but I'm trying to prove something here) = $300,000

I spoke with a bandwidth.com representative to get this roughly estimated price; I didn't just pull it out of my head, so it is fairly accurate. And besides, I know blizzard isn't paying that much for a connection to the internet because OC-192 lines are only used for the largest backbones of the internet, and OC-192 is way more bandwidth then blizzard needs for all the wow users combined.

Staff = $1,600,000

I believe this is also too much money, as I based this on figures I pulled out of my head. I'm assuming about 200 employees total; that includes IT staff, phone support, etc. I really don't think blizzard even has 200 WOW employees because every time I find out how many employees a video game development company has, I am surprised by how low the numbers are. Usually less then 50, so I gave that number a quad boost just to be safe. I'm also assuming a salary of $96,000 a year per employee, which I know is inaccurate, as telephone support staff usually only makes anywhere between $20,000 and $35,000 a year, and even your highest paying IT employee probably only makes about $100,000 to $120,000 a year. I use the word only very loosely, $100,000 a year is a lot of money even in "rip-off" cities like New York, and LA. What I'm trying to get across here is that my estimated $1.6 million for staff should be way over what blizzard actually pays for their entire WOW staff.

Electricity, other utilities, building lease, etc = $5,000,000

I have nothing to base this estimate on; I'm just throwing a number out there.




CEO and board of directors = $1.7 million for the board and $1.25 million for the rich b***ard CEO.

I based this upon an estimated 10 members of the board and one CEO. Each member of the board "earning" (I used quotes because they aren't earning anything, they are getting money handed to them on a silver platter, which is why I hate them, but that is another story) about $170,000 per month. And the CEO probably "earns" (don't even get me started on that guy) $1.25 million per month.



Time to add everything up: 5,000,000 + 1,600,000 + 1,700,000 + 1,250,000 + 300,000 = $9.85 Million dollars of estimated monthly expenses.

More math: 75,000,000 - 9,850,000 = $65,150,000 estimated net income per month.




The following is COMPLTELY UNRELATED!


hahah, awesome avatar shard!! I've never actually watched any more then the first two episodes, but that show is HI-larious! What's the name of the little girl again? I forget..

so uh how far did you have to bend over to pull all those numbers out?? seriously though, with out any real idea of the costs I dont see why you even bothered to post that...

 

[soundfx4]

so uh how far did you have to bend over to pull all those numbers out?? seriously though, with out any real idea of the costs I dont see why you even bothered to post that...

what are you talking about? Those numbers are very logical. That is all completely within reason!


Don't make me get the real stats, because if you all upset me enough, I just might do that.



PLEASE don't upset me enough, I REALLY don't want to try and get the real statistics, I am a super lazy person

 

[El-Scotto]

lol im just as lazy!