World of Warcraft
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dogpoo32
meh
AzCards21 said:
If you plan on questing, try Silithus and Eastern Plaguelands. If you want to grind, Winterspring is the place. Some good quests in WS as well. Good Luck!
cynical_kitten26
huh??
I saw this on tentonhammer.com. I couldn't resist posting it. LOL
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dogpoo32
meh
AzCards21 said:
Congratz!
Less than two years after its introduction, World of Warcraft, made by Blizzard Entertainment, based in Irvine, Calif., is on pace to generate more than $1 billion in revenue this year with almost seven million paying subscribers, who can log into the game and interact with other players.
NY Times
NY Times
Treesquid PhD
Pardon my Engrish
From raphkoster.com
Giving then what they want
Over on the thread about the Worldcon panel on WoW, an anonymous poster engaged in a bit of sarcasm:
http://www.arizonasportsfans.com/vb/
Players apparently want to….. to play a game that’s…. that’s…. ‘fun’…?
To start with, fun varies per player. To many, myself included, the experience of “kill five wolves, kill ten wolves, kill fifteen wolves, kill five kobolds, kill ten kobolds, kill fifteen kobolds” (which is literally the newbie experience in WoW) is not fun, and hasn’t been for a while. Of course players want to play a game that is fun, but that game will be different for different types of players.
The most obvious example of this is “they like combat.” Just today I got an email from the guy at the panel who asked about giving respect to non-combat players.
The commoner reaction, however, is going to be like another one of my aunts:
They……. like……. combat????
So “people like combat.” Do we give them what they want? Or do they really know what they want? In history, “what the people want” has given us the spectacle of public hangings (a charming kid’s entertainment on a Saturday afternoon), slaves being ripped apart by hungry beasts in a circus arena, and the torture of animals tossed into rings with hungry bears to get torn apart.
Of course, it’s much better to have these things happen virtually than for real. But I’d like to think most people are fantasizing not about the gore and the power, and more about accomplishing things with that power. The games try, anyway, to cast you as a hero. They try, anyway, to be about doing the right thing, mostly. The players who follow fantasy tropes are reading books about heroes triumphing over impossible odds. Of course, what the game tells them is that no, actually, the reason you’re slaying the fifteen kobolds are something you skip over quickly because it’s irrelevant; what matters is how many of them you kill and how quickly, so you can maximize your advancement.
So “players… like… combat.” Whoo hoo. Sorry if I sound too lofty and high-falutin’ here, but it’s long past due that we examine some of these assumptions. Let me offer up instead this set of observations that replace that simplistic statement:
I am not saying the combat is the issue; but it’s an issue.
They… don’t like waiting on other players in order to proceed in the game?
The issue here isn’t the waiting, it’s the assumption underneath that it’s about “proceeding in the game.” The point I was making in my commentary on the panel was that there’s an assumption that a game is all it’s about.
At the panel, Cory Doctorow posed questions to the panel that centered on the question of when the operators would start acknowledging the obvious, self-evident fact that these worlds aren’t just games. Of course, if you’re there only to play a game, then waiting sucks. (Of course, when I want to play racquetball, I have to wait a week for my next match. When I play chess, I have to wait for the other player to take a turn. Waiting runs through games all over the place.)
In WoW’s case, we have a game, purely and unapologetically a game. It is not a criticism to say that WoW drops by the wayside most everything else that virtual worlds have to offer. These are actually its strengths:
All of these points are of course 180 degrees away from the things that virtual worlds can offer as unique qualities. Those are the things that virtual worlds can offer than single-player games cannot. In contrast, leading players from one entertaining fight to another, giving them nice rewards, and making sure they never wonder what to do next is what single-player games do excellently.
The common statement is that “playing alone together” is the thing that people want. This may in fact be the case; actual interaction with others is just too damn time-consuming, and therefore not worth it. Right?
They… want to choose who they socialize with and when, rather than have it forced on them?
Choice is not a bad thing. But let’s be honest: by and large, WoW and other gamey worlds work by limiting choice. Limit classes, limit where you can go at any given time (the first time I died in WoW it was because I stepped five feet off the road; it’s a very unforgiving game if you don’t go where you are told). Again, this is a virtue for this purpose: it streamlines the experience and limits confusion on the part of players.
The ability to choose whom to socialize with is effectively a way to reduce the amount of people you come in contact with; it’s a paradoxical situation. Given the ability to choose, you choose only the comfortable, familiar. In the case of a heavily team-oriented game, like the endgame of raids, you need that to function at maximum effectiveness in the game, because it takes a lot of practice to execute well as a team.
There’s a flip side to this as well, of course. I’ve talked before about the issues with homogeneity and insularity; we even have recent study telling us that one of the virtues of MMOs is that they bring together disparate groups of people and expose us to alternate worldviews. One of the surprise hits of the year is High School Musical, a show about precisely how worldviews are a cage. Not to be too lofty here, but the political situation in the Middle East demonstrates this quite clearly as well; it’s exactly the fact that people are trying to “choose who they socialize with and when, rather than have it forced on them” that is causing problems writ very very large.
No no no, this is all wrong!
At Worldcon, Cory Doctorow and David Brin got into a slightly heated argument whilst on a panel about “whether science fiction can change the world.” David bemoaned the fact that much of popular culture is teaching the wrong lessons; as in his well-known essays bashing Star Wars, he pointed out that much of what is rising in media scifi and fantasy (and particularly in the games) is advocating outdated and actively pernicious social models. This is something that I wrestled with when doing SWG; the fact that a small group of players actually used the same phrasing as Nazi apologists did when explaining their Imperial roleplay bugged the crap out of me.
Of course, I already expounded on these invisible lessons once already.
Cory rebutted with the fact that we do see immense engagement on the part of users of cyberspace. Both of them are right, of course. David points out that having all-powerful superbeings like Jedi around, better, dreaming of being an ubermensch is, well, comforting, and also a lie. And Cory points out that users are participating and taking control more than ever; but people do want to escape from this world sometimes too, and passive consumption is still by far the dominant mode of interacting with entertainment. Answers always lie somewhere in between.
So yes, what World of Warcraft does right are also the things it does wrong. It’s all about what the goal is, and their goal is very specific: sheer escape. And at that they succeed brilliantly.
As I write this, this comment was made:
But there’s two sides to every coin. There’s also a market for whom those items fall in the weaknesses column. There’s a market that is half and half, and so on. The relative size of the markets is very much in question. An audience comparable to that of WoW’s plays a game with no combat whatsoever.
In the end…
All I am saying is that all of these are viable choices. But let’s have our eyes open about why we make the choices — both on the developer side and the player side. Let’s be aware of the implications of the choices.
The natural trend of the gamey worlds is towards Guild Wars, the Korean “lobby game” model. The shared world is in many ways an impediment. WoW struck a very nice balance there, and is rewarded for it. If this model continues to dominate, then virtual worlds will continue to become like TV and other mass media, and will continue to acquire the characteristics of that, for good and ill (consumer culture, disposability of content, rapid cycling of hits, hit-driven culture, limited user participation, high production values, reassuring content, and so on). At some point, more will question why have the “massive” bit at all; it incurs a lot of cost and then gets designed around in the actual game.
The lesson of WoW, most fundamentally, may be that the unique things that online worlds bring to the table just aren’t actually mass market. The game systems that really exploit the scale of massive worlds are exactly the ones that are getting tuned down or phased out as the WoW’s live development progresses.
For those of us who like those unique things, well, there’s fortunately a large media landscape, and it’ll keep getting bigger.
Giving then what they want
Over on the thread about the Worldcon panel on WoW, an anonymous poster engaged in a bit of sarcasm:
What?!?!?!?
This makes no sense!
Players apparently want to….. to play a game that’s…. that’s…. ‘fun’…?
They……. like……. combat????
They… don’t like waiting on other players in order to proceed in the game?
They… want to choose who they socialize with and when, rather than have it forced on them?
No no no, this is all wrong! These players must be wrong. Clearly they do not know what they want at all, because they cannot possibly want these things.
Of course, the sarcasm falls slightly flat, because it misses the point of the post, to my mind. But it does raise other questions.This makes no sense!
Players apparently want to….. to play a game that’s…. that’s…. ‘fun’…?
They……. like……. combat????
They… don’t like waiting on other players in order to proceed in the game?
They… want to choose who they socialize with and when, rather than have it forced on them?
No no no, this is all wrong! These players must be wrong. Clearly they do not know what they want at all, because they cannot possibly want these things.
http://www.arizonasportsfans.com/vb/
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Players apparently want to….. to play a game that’s…. that’s…. ‘fun’…?
To start with, fun varies per player. To many, myself included, the experience of “kill five wolves, kill ten wolves, kill fifteen wolves, kill five kobolds, kill ten kobolds, kill fifteen kobolds” (which is literally the newbie experience in WoW) is not fun, and hasn’t been for a while. Of course players want to play a game that is fun, but that game will be different for different types of players.
The most obvious example of this is “they like combat.” Just today I got an email from the guy at the panel who asked about giving respect to non-combat players.
I am hoping you someday design an SF MMO where non-combat players (as well as combat players) can participate, and feel that they have something useful to offer ingame. I would be great if this MMO also had Entertainers in it too — how I loved my slinky female SWG Entertainer Briana, and my chubby male Wookiee Entertainer TehWook (TehWook was the least successful entertainer in pre-CU SWG history — never earned a single credit, but I still loved the char)… There are thousands of [us]… on the wrong side of 30, are professionals, don’t mind complex MMOs, have the attention span to stay loyal to a good MMO for YEARS, and have the money to finance multiple char accounts. This is a gold mine for you as an MMO designer - you won’t get WoW numbers with such an audience but you will get a solid base of loyal, intelligent, high-income players if you ever designed another SF MMO that had socialization, crafting, virtual-world properties, and that got away from the awful combat-only model…
Now, I happen to think that this guy is wrong in one important respect. The niche activity is slaying kobolds, you see. It’s hard to see this, immersed as we are in the culture of games, but there’s a reason why the rest of the world largely sees gaming as tacky. In the wake of the Harper’s article, I have been getting emails from friends and family, and in one of them one of my aunts commented,
I loved the interaction, the thoughtfulness, the core ideas discussed and yet part of me felt completely outside - like I was in a foreign land and folks were speaking a foreign language since I don’t even know the games being talked about.
And this was in a case where half the table wasn’t up on games.
The commoner reaction, however, is going to be like another one of my aunts:
I had some difficulty moving into the article and your book right way for the simple reason that you begin with evil acts by not nice people or creatures. Why must life be about doing someone in? It is so violent. I dislike the fact that the little children I teach are being exposed to blowing up things, shooting guys and droppin people from the sky. I think it anesthetizes them from real life pain as they turn it on and off in a machine so when someone gets hurt they do not think to say “Can I get help for you?” In the book it was someone chewing toes off a person. Do you know how painful that must feel to a victim? The very description made me upset. Why must children be trained to think of that viewpoint?
I suspect the typical reaction on the part of a gaming aficionado is to say “crackpot.” But a bit of perspective should allow us to step back and ask the reverse. What exactly is “normal” about pretending to dress in skimpy obsolete armor, swing a big sharp sword or pretend to have supernatural powers, blasting away at innocents and monsters alike in order to count yourself more powerful, indiscriminately slaying wildlife without any real purpose and letting the meat and hide go to waste, enjoying gobbets of flesh being tossed about from the carcasses? This is heroism? Give me a break — it’s not, it’s a wish-fulfillment power fantasy.
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They……. like……. combat????
So “people like combat.” Do we give them what they want? Or do they really know what they want? In history, “what the people want” has given us the spectacle of public hangings (a charming kid’s entertainment on a Saturday afternoon), slaves being ripped apart by hungry beasts in a circus arena, and the torture of animals tossed into rings with hungry bears to get torn apart.
Of course, it’s much better to have these things happen virtually than for real. But I’d like to think most people are fantasizing not about the gore and the power, and more about accomplishing things with that power. The games try, anyway, to cast you as a hero. They try, anyway, to be about doing the right thing, mostly. The players who follow fantasy tropes are reading books about heroes triumphing over impossible odds. Of course, what the game tells them is that no, actually, the reason you’re slaying the fifteen kobolds are something you skip over quickly because it’s irrelevant; what matters is how many of them you kill and how quickly, so you can maximize your advancement.
So “players… like… combat.” Whoo hoo. Sorry if I sound too lofty and high-falutin’ here, but it’s long past due that we examine some of these assumptions. Let me offer up instead this set of observations that replace that simplistic statement:
- Core gamers are more comfortable with combat than the general population.
- The best-selling games have tended not to focus on violence as their core attribute or mechanic. (Glance over this list and you will see what I mean; yes, Half-Life shows up near the top, but put that number in context with the number of people who bought Nintendogs, for example. Or Super Mario. Or Tetris.)
- What users are responding to isn’t just the combat, it’s the gear collection and the feedback cycle, both of which could easily exist without the pointless slaughter.
I am not saying the combat is the issue; but it’s an issue.
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They… don’t like waiting on other players in order to proceed in the game?
The issue here isn’t the waiting, it’s the assumption underneath that it’s about “proceeding in the game.” The point I was making in my commentary on the panel was that there’s an assumption that a game is all it’s about.
At the panel, Cory Doctorow posed questions to the panel that centered on the question of when the operators would start acknowledging the obvious, self-evident fact that these worlds aren’t just games. Of course, if you’re there only to play a game, then waiting sucks. (Of course, when I want to play racquetball, I have to wait a week for my next match. When I play chess, I have to wait for the other player to take a turn. Waiting runs through games all over the place.)
In WoW’s case, we have a game, purely and unapologetically a game. It is not a criticism to say that WoW drops by the wayside most everything else that virtual worlds have to offer. These are actually its strengths:
- There is no hint of political support in the game system (nor from the game administration, which participates minimally in interaction with the userbase). Instead, it is unapologetically a broadcast entertainment product, and the players are cheerful consumers.
- The game system actively works to limit a vibrant economy from forming. Trade is limited, as the most valuable goods can only be obtained by each user separately and cannot be traded. Microeconomies, independent merchanting, and the like are prevented by providing a perfect-information economy. Variation in goods is severely limited.
- The game system also actively permits independence, strongly limiting the amount of interpersonal interaction that is required to accomplish anything, until the higher levels. In fact, by ensuring that users are always on a task, chance social encounters are minimized. “Third place” spaces are not designed into the game’s landscape, and what passes for them (such as Ironforge) are less like neighborhood bars than they are like New York City streets.
All of these points are of course 180 degrees away from the things that virtual worlds can offer as unique qualities. Those are the things that virtual worlds can offer than single-player games cannot. In contrast, leading players from one entertaining fight to another, giving them nice rewards, and making sure they never wonder what to do next is what single-player games do excellently.
The common statement is that “playing alone together” is the thing that people want. This may in fact be the case; actual interaction with others is just too damn time-consuming, and therefore not worth it. Right?
You must be registered for see images attach
They… want to choose who they socialize with and when, rather than have it forced on them?
Choice is not a bad thing. But let’s be honest: by and large, WoW and other gamey worlds work by limiting choice. Limit classes, limit where you can go at any given time (the first time I died in WoW it was because I stepped five feet off the road; it’s a very unforgiving game if you don’t go where you are told). Again, this is a virtue for this purpose: it streamlines the experience and limits confusion on the part of players.
The ability to choose whom to socialize with is effectively a way to reduce the amount of people you come in contact with; it’s a paradoxical situation. Given the ability to choose, you choose only the comfortable, familiar. In the case of a heavily team-oriented game, like the endgame of raids, you need that to function at maximum effectiveness in the game, because it takes a lot of practice to execute well as a team.
There’s a flip side to this as well, of course. I’ve talked before about the issues with homogeneity and insularity; we even have recent study telling us that one of the virtues of MMOs is that they bring together disparate groups of people and expose us to alternate worldviews. One of the surprise hits of the year is High School Musical, a show about precisely how worldviews are a cage. Not to be too lofty here, but the political situation in the Middle East demonstrates this quite clearly as well; it’s exactly the fact that people are trying to “choose who they socialize with and when, rather than have it forced on them” that is causing problems writ very very large.
You must be registered for see images attach
No no no, this is all wrong!
At Worldcon, Cory Doctorow and David Brin got into a slightly heated argument whilst on a panel about “whether science fiction can change the world.” David bemoaned the fact that much of popular culture is teaching the wrong lessons; as in his well-known essays bashing Star Wars, he pointed out that much of what is rising in media scifi and fantasy (and particularly in the games) is advocating outdated and actively pernicious social models. This is something that I wrestled with when doing SWG; the fact that a small group of players actually used the same phrasing as Nazi apologists did when explaining their Imperial roleplay bugged the crap out of me.
Of course, I already expounded on these invisible lessons once already.
Cory rebutted with the fact that we do see immense engagement on the part of users of cyberspace. Both of them are right, of course. David points out that having all-powerful superbeings like Jedi around, better, dreaming of being an ubermensch is, well, comforting, and also a lie. And Cory points out that users are participating and taking control more than ever; but people do want to escape from this world sometimes too, and passive consumption is still by far the dominant mode of interacting with entertainment. Answers always lie somewhere in between.
So yes, what World of Warcraft does right are also the things it does wrong. It’s all about what the goal is, and their goal is very specific: sheer escape. And at that they succeed brilliantly.
As I write this, this comment was made:
Raph, Raph, Raph… please just let go of it…. this whole “socialization” thing. You’re starting to sound like one of those cognoscenti that the world has passed by, leaving them to mutter to themselves in a corner.
WoW is a huge success because it does things right. Not because the unwashed masses like it, but rather because it simply does a MMORPG right.
As long as we agree that it does a MMORPG right, sure. One size does not fit all. It’s not about unwashed masses and cognoscenti at all. Rather, it’s about whether a given product design hits a given target market. There’s a large core gamer market for whom WoW hits all the buttons, for whom the concerns/strengths I listed are all in the strengths column.WoW is a huge success because it does things right. Not because the unwashed masses like it, but rather because it simply does a MMORPG right.
But there’s two sides to every coin. There’s also a market for whom those items fall in the weaknesses column. There’s a market that is half and half, and so on. The relative size of the markets is very much in question. An audience comparable to that of WoW’s plays a game with no combat whatsoever.
You must be registered for see images attach
In the end…
All I am saying is that all of these are viable choices. But let’s have our eyes open about why we make the choices — both on the developer side and the player side. Let’s be aware of the implications of the choices.
The natural trend of the gamey worlds is towards Guild Wars, the Korean “lobby game” model. The shared world is in many ways an impediment. WoW struck a very nice balance there, and is rewarded for it. If this model continues to dominate, then virtual worlds will continue to become like TV and other mass media, and will continue to acquire the characteristics of that, for good and ill (consumer culture, disposability of content, rapid cycling of hits, hit-driven culture, limited user participation, high production values, reassuring content, and so on). At some point, more will question why have the “massive” bit at all; it incurs a lot of cost and then gets designed around in the actual game.
The lesson of WoW, most fundamentally, may be that the unique things that online worlds bring to the table just aren’t actually mass market. The game systems that really exploit the scale of massive worlds are exactly the ones that are getting tuned down or phased out as the WoW’s live development progresses.
For those of us who like those unique things, well, there’s fortunately a large media landscape, and it’ll keep getting bigger.
Treesquid PhD
Pardon my Engrish
This article speaks to the "WoWism" of all MMO games, I know tha a game I played that was more SIM based got gutted and turned in to a WoW copy cat basically ruining the socialization and economic aspect of the game I enjoyed.
Treesquid PhD
Pardon my Engrish
The author is a famous MMO builder. My first MMO was Star Wars Galaxies and this guy was the lead designer. He left SOE this year, mainly due to SWG and the direction, which was copy WoW exactly and convert their player base.
I think he is basically saying in too many words that WoW is a great polished game because of the way they do their game but it is not good for every game, unfortunately too many games try to copy WoW's directed content and lack of interaction/interdependence because it is so successful, but it's foolish to do so because WoW's formula is unique to the WoW type of MMO gamer.
If you played an open ended MMO you would know what I am talking about, SWG as an example was
-Being dropped in a world with 250 credits and a melon and a good luck!
-Full rich player economy where loot was the exception and player crafted goods were the rule
-social professions like dancers, musicians, image designers, merchants.
-Player housing, cities run by players.
-few instances
-no combat levels and a skill based system 32 professions.
I never played video games outside of an occasional RTS game but the open ended nature of this MMO was very appealing. With friends, we built up a billion credit monopoly in game, we strategized about pushing out new crafters in the market, expanded markets, made alliances by paying resource gatherers more than the competition could, brought new versions of crafted goods to the market first. We were all well known loved and hated on the server and It was a blast! Then they changed it all due to WoW, coveting their player base. I tried WoW for a month but it was a little too directed and single player RPG like for my liking. The crafting was useless also.
I was posting it because I was interested mainly if any MMO players here have experience with deeper more open ended MMO's? And if they think WoW is actually good for the industry? I think it has a place but I hate how every other MMO has to follow this model only.
I think he is basically saying in too many words that WoW is a great polished game because of the way they do their game but it is not good for every game, unfortunately too many games try to copy WoW's directed content and lack of interaction/interdependence because it is so successful, but it's foolish to do so because WoW's formula is unique to the WoW type of MMO gamer.
If you played an open ended MMO you would know what I am talking about, SWG as an example was
-Being dropped in a world with 250 credits and a melon and a good luck!
-Full rich player economy where loot was the exception and player crafted goods were the rule
-social professions like dancers, musicians, image designers, merchants.
-Player housing, cities run by players.
-few instances
-no combat levels and a skill based system 32 professions.
I never played video games outside of an occasional RTS game but the open ended nature of this MMO was very appealing. With friends, we built up a billion credit monopoly in game, we strategized about pushing out new crafters in the market, expanded markets, made alliances by paying resource gatherers more than the competition could, brought new versions of crafted goods to the market first. We were all well known loved and hated on the server and It was a blast! Then they changed it all due to WoW, coveting their player base. I tried WoW for a month but it was a little too directed and single player RPG like for my liking. The crafting was useless also.
I was posting it because I was interested mainly if any MMO players here have experience with deeper more open ended MMO's? And if they think WoW is actually good for the industry? I think it has a place but I hate how every other MMO has to follow this model only.
Treesquid said:
DOH... Much better... I had totally missed the point...
I did get that he feels some admiration for WOW's model but he kept making references to things that are better in other MMORPG's. I think people read to much into things, Blizzard has turned 1 billion dollars in revenue in 12 months. I don't care what someone has created, if it makes that much money that quick it is going to be duplicated. He may think that the style is not what people want, or not what most people want but the numbers don't support his ideas, or feelings.
If people want something different, it will be created and it will make 1.2 billion a year, or whatever (insert larger number here)... I have always found it funny that EQ has been so mad about Blizzard joining the MMORPG arena. The only reason they got mad is they knew that Blizzard was a much better company, with a much better product and the numbers ended up proving it.
I'm still on there because Blizzard has put together a good progressing game.
I didn't want to interact with a bunch of people when I first started. And I sure as heck didn't want a bunch of 60's around screwing with me either. I think that's the great part of their formula. As you progress the game gets more difficult and you grow more accustomed to interacting. But it's not forced on you right off the bat, and you have time to grow into it.
My .02 anyway.
I didn't want to interact with a bunch of people when I first started. And I sure as heck didn't want a bunch of 60's around screwing with me either. I think that's the great part of their formula. As you progress the game gets more difficult and you grow more accustomed to interacting. But it's not forced on you right off the bat, and you have time to grow into it.
My .02 anyway.
true... and you don't ever HAVE to interact if you don't want to... That is how I got so many high level characters, was not into wanting my results to be based on others' performances so I just kept starting another guy...
Then I wanted more stuff so I started the guild thing and the friends and the raids...
And they keep adding stuff and the world changes slowly but does change... a pretty amazing thing if you ask me... (and I know no one did)
Then I wanted more stuff so I started the guild thing and the friends and the raids...
And they keep adding stuff and the world changes slowly but does change... a pretty amazing thing if you ask me... (and I know no one did)
CaptainInsano
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CardFan67 said:
Jesus christ you think then they would at least reduce the per month charge if they are making such a freakin profit.
I remember in the old days mmorpg like everquest used to say "per month charge is to finance the server" well apparently that went into the CRAPHOLE.
I hate having to think hey, if I played wow for 2 years that is 50 for the game plus 24 months of 15 bucks which adds up to $410 for a single game. I worry if mmorpg gets too successful they will end up like microsoft charging $100+ for an os that everybody uses that should only cost 50 bucks to buy.
The problem with mmorpg is if it gets too popular it will kill gaming variety by nuking the market, less games now only a few big mmorpgs with a jillion users.
Be careful financing these games, it's like your financing the tony soprano's of the game industry.
It is "real" supply and demand dynamic working here, it is not a mafia style ransom or hostage situation...
Make a product, it becomes popular... It is not like they started it at 2 bucks a month and they waited for people to get involved and then cranked up the price... Always been the same and you can pay less if you buy larger blocks of time up front.
I would have to say that if someone told me I would be playing, paying and still doing this 2 years after the fact, 3 years ago I would have called them nuts... But I am...
Some players complain about Blizzards server maintenance and various aspects but I have been playing games on line for some time and overall Blizzard's product has really raised the bar, people will expect more from the next release of any on line gaming product.
Make a product, it becomes popular... It is not like they started it at 2 bucks a month and they waited for people to get involved and then cranked up the price... Always been the same and you can pay less if you buy larger blocks of time up front.
I would have to say that if someone told me I would be playing, paying and still doing this 2 years after the fact, 3 years ago I would have called them nuts... But I am...
Some players complain about Blizzards server maintenance and various aspects but I have been playing games on line for some time and overall Blizzard's product has really raised the bar, people will expect more from the next release of any on line gaming product.
cynical_kitten26
huh??
I have always envisioned WoW moving to where you can actually choose whether you want to be neutral to both factions or keep it as it is. Then as a neutral faction you could still have to face those who are completely loyal to their faction and/or just focus on the normal quests, etc. This would make the formation of guilds much more important. In addition, housing (like guild houses in Everquest) would also be interesting. And I understand that they would have to implement something that would allow you to learn each races language, but with all the expansions and such, there is gonna be a lot of things added that we as players couldn't imagine. They could make it a chain of quests that you have to complete at a certain level to gain neutrality with the factions. I don't know, just a suggestion. I love the game as is, but there's always things that could make the game even more interesting.
I also saw that you can pre-order the Burning Crusade on Amazon for $39.99.
I also saw that you can pre-order the Burning Crusade on Amazon for $39.99.
CaptainInsano
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CardFan67 said:
The tony soprano thing was kind of a reach, I didn't literally mean it as if blizzard held people to gunpoint or pulled dubious market tactics to make people play lol I apologize for putting it that way.. My bad. What I meant is that by putting such an obscene amount of money into these types of games less seems to go toward other games. So it's like your supporting something that is the "bad guy".
This summer was absolutely pathetic for game releases, all I enjoyed and had any desire to play were Prey (which was good but SHORT) and Titan Quest and I sit here thinking to myself "Could this be because these mmorpgs are dominating the market?".
Now, perhaps I am wrong but I think with how big consoles have gotten and the fact that everyone on pc plays WOW, EVERQUEST, CITY OF HEROES, etc that we are starting to see the brunt of what is going to be a long haul of crappy and few single player game releases on pc, and for someone like me who doesn't want to invest hundreds of dollars into a single game that's a bad thing.
HeavyB3
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CaptainInsano said:
I used to have your opinions. Then I started playing. I realized this game is freaking awesome. 15 bucks a month is just one less movie or cd. It kills a lot of time and its fun.
CaptainInsano
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HeavyB3 said:
Damn I hate it when you put it that way because obviously it lets me know im missing something but I just can't bring myself to pay that freakin much for a single game.
Maybe I should write blizz a letter about lowering the monthly cost, I know it has a .001% chance or working but it's worth a shot. I would EASILY play this game for 5 bucks a month. Just don't want to addict myself to the crack heroine that is WOW for $15.
CaptainInsano said:
I look at it very similar to Heavy. If I wasn't paying $15 a month on WoW, I'd sure as heck be spending more than that on entertainment of some kind, be it DVD's, going to the movies, etc. Plus in my case, I'd have to factor in paying a babysitter for my husband and I to be able to go out together. This way, we get to socialize with friends (real life and ones we've never met face to face) via WoW, while our kids are watching Sponge Bob or fast asleep in their beds, without having to pay a sitter.
The great thing about WoW is that the game is totally different at each level! And once you get to the end game stuff, I swear that there is even MORE to do than any level before!!! I've happily paid my $15 a month for a year now and I don't plan to stop any time soon. How else can I hang out with my husband and our friends while sitting around in my pjs and get out frustrations from the day by killing things!
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