What's wrong with WoW?
With an audience of 10 million, what's so bad about World of Warcraft?
Last night I defended Richard Bartle's stance that MMORPG games could be so much better. He uses World of Warcraft as his example in a rambling sort of way, but this part is key to me:
I would ask them if they actually have this kind of "we're going to piss on you because we can" attitude that they seem to have with Kharazan? Because if you have, really, you're causing yourself a lot of trouble there. There was absolutely no need for Kharazan to have that kind of hardcore raid attendance thing. There was no need for it. Why can't you PUG it? It's got five different sections. There could have been five separate instances. Why? What were you trying to say?
Forgetting the specific example of Kharazan for a moment, there's the pissing on the players quote and it's bang on the money. Exact. I don't need to pull a bunch of Tigole faux pas quotes from Blizzard to tell you that there's a hamster wheel grind intentionally inherent to these games and WoW specifically.
When WoW was released, it was heralded as the solution to the grind in MMORPGs. What happened? It wasn't, that's what. Blizzard applied bandaids like removing XP loss on death, but then kept the base model of Everquest with "The Vision" still at its core, refining it even deeper in their Endgame as time went by. They discovered very quickly that it was cheaper to stretch content than provide as much as players wanted.
The defining part of "The Vision" is that the game's progress traps the player in, making them continue playing not just for fun, but for rewards that lead to further rewards.
It's no mistake that these games are often labelled as addictive, because from an outside perspective there's wonder that people will play past their enjoyment. Gordon Walton has summed this up:
They quit because they'd stayed too long... the only way for them to escape was to demonize the game.
Just like Everquest, mark my words, if Blizzard continues to inflict tasks on players without enough corresponding fun, it will slowly move from accolades to vilification. I've become jaded about the game myself and I encounter more and more other players that feel the same way.
Now I'm going to *gasp* say something positive about WAR. Mythic has focused much of their development efforts on reducing the grind. They've specifically catered to those that want satisfying PvP combat from level 1 up. They've improved many of the "oh god, not this again" moments in questing. They are in the good space that Blizzard was 4 years ago. If this stuff bugs you but you still want to play MMORPGs, then WAR may be your best tonic.
But I do wonder, with this push to improve, why are they still on the base model of Everquest? The same goes for Age of Conan, where the attitude at Funcom is that of course you have to start with that, it's the base right? Thank goodness for the awesome combat in AoC.
As much as I'm enjoying these games, I think evolving on the EQ model is an uphill battle against what its core design principles stood on. Standing up and questioning the trappings is something players should do if they truly want to see the grind go away.
