There’s an interesting Gamasutra article on the lessons WoW is teaching. It’s worth a read, though if you like WoW, you’ll probably hate the article.
In other news… It’s official! The Phantom is dead and Infinium Labs is circling the drain. They’re still desperately clinging to life and are trying to bring their Phantom Lapboard to market, but it’s a pretty much lost cause. Yet, somehow, they still manage to get stupid investors to toss more money into the financial singularity they created around themselves.
Ding dong, the Phantom is Dead!
As the primary proponent of World of Warcraft for this page, I will simply say:
This article is great. It points out pratically every fundamental problem with the game. Unfortunately it blames WoW directly for a lot of issues that are more the result of earlier MMO games, with certain exceptions here and there, that WoW is simply a well produced polishing of.
Every single issue addressed in the article is spot-on and very accurate, in addition to being on the verge of being worrisome. It does have to be taken, however, that the article is written by an extreme introvert that probably shouldn’t be playing MMORPG’s to begin with, but his analysis thereof is very good.
Hey, what’s wrong with extreme introverts? 🙂
The biggest one there, for me, is the whole Time Spent > Skill. Bartoneus is right in that it’s always been the way MMO games have operated, and indeed a profitable venture in a pay per month venture, but it’s probably the biggest thing that irks me: there’s no way for me to be a casual player, and someone who has way more time to spend than I do will always be better off.
I can commiserate with The Game in that sense. The end all logic behind World of Warcraft is that they’re making the game in the effort to create profit, in which sense it is a very well designed mechanism. The Honor System is a direct product of this, as it rewards the players who play the most, and who play the most over the longest period of time. The game is based on a monthly subscription, so the basic factor is time = money. Skill does not give them money.
In fact, I have so much to say in reply to that article (not bad at all) that I’m going to write a seperate post in reply, that will come soon…
“The end all logic behind World of Warcraft is that they’re making the game in the effort to create profit, in which sense it is a very well designed mechanism… The game is based on a monthly subscription, so the basic factor is time = money…”
These are two very good points, but it kind of begs the question: if the game is based on MONTHLY subscription, why is having the most HOURS logged encouraged? If anything, they would want people to log in the least possible amount every months and still collect the cash from them since to do so would lower their bandwidth costs.
So, if profit is the primary reason for this, why aren’t Blizzard designing the game so that people will log on and play for a few hours every month and still keep the subscription?
Ummm, well…I can’t exactly argue that it’s not designed to do that. As I know many people who are commiting just such an atrocious act. CURSE YOU BLIZZARD!
First off… yes I am lazy, took me forever just to register with the site.. boo me.
Now on to the subject.
The artical does well to point out many of the current flaws with WoW. Mainly the TOA issues and PVP honor system. Yet, as a WoW addict (To which I will fully admit to anyone) Im gonna have to take a defensive stance on this and Judo Chop this artical to pieces. Here it goes:
PVP Honor System:
Yes, Flawed. Theres really nothing blizz can do to fix this thing at this point. I PVPed with my main character in these horrible battlegrounds for hour s and hours on end. It got to the point where I got sick of the elitist attitude alot of players had inside the battle grounds, so I stopped. Its funny though since I stopped the only issue I have with Battlegrounds is the World Defense Channel.. easily solved.. /leave (Channel #) ahhhh much better. So my issue with PVP, no issue with PVP if you dont.
TOA/Goldfarmers:
ok heres one that really tweeks my nipples (xcuse the term). My main character has Gatherer/Craftsman type professions and at the higher lvls in the game rare ores/items come few and far between (As they should as they are RARE items) and its a joy to find and gather these items. Yet, one day while still young at level 60 your farming an ore in some remote location that youve never seen before there rides up some other character. you emote /greet and /wave and turn to return to your ore.. only to find that person mining away at it. At which point they link you a gem/item they recieved from the vein thats rarer then the actual ore itself. Later, in a major city you see the same person broadcasting WTS (SAID ITEM) 200G per 1.
That my friends is A) Bad buisiness B) Bad sportsmanship (yeah i know wows not a sport) c) just plain wrong.
So what does this story have to do with TOA. well if you pay close enough attention youll notice the same person selling the same things over and over. Dig deeper and youll find these ppl selling in game money via the internet for real money. The TOA states no in game items may be sold for real money.
Its common sense. Gold farming in game ruins in game markets. It makes it hard for players like myself to find items i need , due to the items being farmed to hell, without paying a crap load of gold for some stupid item. I have blizzards back on this one.
oh and as for exploiting programming errors, Had two players in my guild accounts banned for using two such programs. one was a gatherer programs called Cruiser that allows you to walk away from your computer as you character finds and kills the next nearest mob, collects its money and moves on. the other was a programming error that allows players to gain 2000xp when the Honor Logs resseting cause server lag at 3am. excuse me but F that.. I spent the time getting my character to 60 and had a blast doing it. Let them rot
which brings me to the final point (I know its long sorry) Guilds/End Game content:
The artical stated that if your not in a raiding guild you rot in some in game limbo ignored by other players and missing out on items.
While this is true in some sense in actuality its not close to the truth at all. Blizzard has, and is adding what a friend and I like to call “Epics for the rest of us”. Currently by compleating certain quests with certain faction groups you cann recieve high end Epic items/weapons. Blizzard has also recently realized alot of players WONT get into raiding guilds. So they are currently working on Epic armor sets that are obtainable for players who cannot enter end game instances with large guilds.
so thats it.. but before i end transmition let me just say this:
Its a game. Just a game. ONLY a game.
If i wasnt in a raiding guild, Id still enjoy it. Its neat to me, its fun to finally run around in a world that I have played in since Warcraft:Orcs Vs Humans.
to the nah sayers… Enjoy The Damn Game Already!
end transmition
Psh, like you know what you’re talking about, large-raid-guild croney! Shut it! 🙂
Nice comment, I’ll have more WoW based material for you shortly!
RabbleRabbleRabble Bring it onnnn! Rabble rabble