The Problem with WoW
RahnalH102
the Green Devout, Veteran Monster Hunter, Creature EnthusiastNew Mexico Icrontian
Coordinating 10+ people from across the country (and possibly world) to:
Meet at the same time.
Do their homework.
Be properly prepared.
Know their respective jobs.
and more, can be a bit daunting.
Getting dumped with all that responsibility, expectations, and sometimes babysitting, when you barely have a leash on your own life is !@#$in' horrible. Feeling honor-bound to your friends to do the job doesn't exactly help either. With no other candidate even being close to worthy, can you just completely drop all the work you and many others put into this "organization"?
World of Warcraft has been around for upwards of 6 1/2 years now and has changed considerably since. it's no wonder many people are jaded with it for whatever reason they personally have.
I've played WoW for around 4-5 years now. I've beaten 25 man raids at current level, achieved some level of "glory" in Rated Arena matches, grinded my !@# off raising reputation solely for the reason of " I like this group" with nary a care for achievements (did plenty before those were implemented) or validity of items. I've tanked, healed, and DPSed all lvls of content.
In all that time of gameplay, I've rarely, if ever, hated the game itself. (Well except for grinding but who DOES love grinding?!)
My fellow players have always been the catalyst for "Why do I play this again?" Sure there is the inherent conflicts that come with any large melting pot of people, with anonymity thrown in for good measure. I can deal with that. I've delved into the darker sides of "The Internet" and have come out more-or-less together. No it's my friends and teammates that have given me the most grief, albeit unintentional. Being dumped with the role of Guild Master of a fledgling raiding guild, inherently that didn't seem like a big challenge for me. I didn't think things would be ideal and would run themselves. I planned for the problems and challenges, but apparently even one simple little "ideal" is too much to expect sometimes. That is to say a simple I ask a simple question that should only have a "yes" or "no" reply. Yet not a sound is made. I try to make the processes easy and so you feel like they have a say in the matter (and they do.) Since that approach failed, I to be a bit more "strict" and just make decisions and ask if they agree with the decision. Still no replies.
If I wasn't so honor bound I'd just pass it to someone else and leave to solo stuff till I'm satisfied. Then wait till the next big patch or expansion to rinse and repeat. But for now I'll do what i can to make it better and hopefully get my guild more self-sufficient so that i can pass it on and not worry.
That's my problem with WoW. I'm not gonna expect you to give your own or want to (specially since it appears to have died out here in the past few months.) Mainly I just needed to vent this. On that note I feel slightly better but not really. Did I do it wrong?
Meet at the same time.
Do their homework.
Be properly prepared.
Know their respective jobs.
and more, can be a bit daunting.
Getting dumped with all that responsibility, expectations, and sometimes babysitting, when you barely have a leash on your own life is !@#$in' horrible. Feeling honor-bound to your friends to do the job doesn't exactly help either. With no other candidate even being close to worthy, can you just completely drop all the work you and many others put into this "organization"?
World of Warcraft has been around for upwards of 6 1/2 years now and has changed considerably since. it's no wonder many people are jaded with it for whatever reason they personally have.
I've played WoW for around 4-5 years now. I've beaten 25 man raids at current level, achieved some level of "glory" in Rated Arena matches, grinded my !@# off raising reputation solely for the reason of " I like this group" with nary a care for achievements (did plenty before those were implemented) or validity of items. I've tanked, healed, and DPSed all lvls of content.
In all that time of gameplay, I've rarely, if ever, hated the game itself. (Well except for grinding but who DOES love grinding?!)
My fellow players have always been the catalyst for "Why do I play this again?" Sure there is the inherent conflicts that come with any large melting pot of people, with anonymity thrown in for good measure. I can deal with that. I've delved into the darker sides of "The Internet" and have come out more-or-less together. No it's my friends and teammates that have given me the most grief, albeit unintentional. Being dumped with the role of Guild Master of a fledgling raiding guild, inherently that didn't seem like a big challenge for me. I didn't think things would be ideal and would run themselves. I planned for the problems and challenges, but apparently even one simple little "ideal" is too much to expect sometimes. That is to say a simple I ask a simple question that should only have a "yes" or "no" reply. Yet not a sound is made. I try to make the processes easy and so you feel like they have a say in the matter (and they do.) Since that approach failed, I to be a bit more "strict" and just make decisions and ask if they agree with the decision. Still no replies.
If I wasn't so honor bound I'd just pass it to someone else and leave to solo stuff till I'm satisfied. Then wait till the next big patch or expansion to rinse and repeat. But for now I'll do what i can to make it better and hopefully get my guild more self-sufficient so that i can pass it on and not worry.
That's my problem with WoW. I'm not gonna expect you to give your own or want to (specially since it appears to have died out here in the past few months.) Mainly I just needed to vent this. On that note I feel slightly better but not really. Did I do it wrong?
0
Comments
Mining to get cash to buy a better weapon to level up to kill a tougher boss so you can get a better weapon to level up to kill a tougher boss....there are any number of games that can do that.
And the quality of the game is irrelevant, but there are better games...? So, do you feel that game design is worthless, or do you feel that WoW is so poorly designed that it's no longer relevant to your argument of quality? And is attachment to the community a weakness, or the fact that someone's willing to pay $15 a month for, ostensibly, something that is worthless except for that artificial identity in that artificial community? I'm fairly attached to Icrontic. Is that a weakness, or only if I'm willing to pay for it?
Don't think I'm defending WoW specifically; my point is that there seems to be a bit of misdirected rage here coming out in poorly-reasoned arguments. Yes, there are a lot of games that perform essentially the same thing. One could argue that Facebook is fairly similar (an artificial community with your artificial identity where you perform actions in order to gain friends and recognition). Some people, however, are going to enjoy the experience of WoW better than they're going to enjoy the experience of Facebook, though, and will be willing to pay $15 a month for it. Some people might even find that the $15 a month is worth the experience of the game /without/ getting heavily involved in the community aspect. Yes, WoW has a grind. So does Contra if you play through for score.
I don't want to start anything. I'm not into flame wars. I just couldn't let something like "The quality of the game is irrelevant..." lie. If this makes you angry or you are offended, I'm sorry. If it makes any difference I'd say the same thing in person without my artificial online identity.
I think you might consider redirecting this energy into finding the dude who shat in your sandwich. Or into playing Tribes. Going fast is far superior to grinding.
Midga brings up some interesting points, too - folks that tend to dislike WoW often focus almost wholly on the negative aspects, and minimalize the fun aspects - not just in arguments, but in their viewpoint. I think there's a very, very obvious fact about WoW that is commonly neglected:
It's fun.
WoW is fun. Sure, you can point out the things you don't like all you want - that you're paying for it. That there are better alternatives. That it's repetitive. Hell, maybe you'll take these points so far as to go the Kitty Genovese reporter route and assume that all the people playing it are lazy or stupid. But the fact remains that you're missing the forest for your trees. We're not logical creatures, conditioning works, and the overall experience is FUN.
Quite frankly, hashing out a definition of fun or searching for all the reasons to the contrary - i.e. "well maybe YOU think wiping over and over is fun" - is really very shortsighted. Nobody THINKS something is fun with logic. You FEEL that it's fun. It's a big-picture event.
Perspective: I have never raided or played any end-game content other than rep stuff and achievements. I am a "casual".
If you take out the multiplayer aspect of WoW, then you just have a fairly large RPG. While it will flounder when compared to other solo RPGs, it's not a downright horrible one. The story is there (although time warped,) and individual mechanics and design are greatly improving. But it is overall a multiplayer game, so you need to find others of the same mindset that you can work with/be friends with, or not complete the endgame. Not a big loss if you anticipate this.
As for the social aspect, I make friends on there. Not co-workers, affiliates, or just that poor sap who takes all the damage for me. Do we always need WoW to interact with each other? Nope. I know many of em on Facebook and play with em in other games and whatnot.
I guess, going by the common complaints, you could say that most detractors of WoW expect a good experience and reward for effort for the monthly payment. However the grinds, the learning of boss fights, and other cons of the game do not meet those expectations and they feel it was a waste of money and can't fathom why others get a value out of it.
I can totally see that point. Now if to find someone who actually represents this point.
Overall, if you don't like it and feel it's a waste of money, you don't like it and feel it's a waste of money. I won't change that. I do like it and have fun and feel that justifies the cost most of the time, and that's my choice. To be fair, there is sort of a grind in Tribes, but who cares when you're GOING FAST!!! In my opinion, a great way to play it. Don't have to get real dirty, and can enjoy it for what you feel it's worth and drop it when ready. With how you can at least dabble in teh endgame content now, it's a good way to at least know if you'd be interested in that sort of gameplay.