I feel slightly embarrassed that I was only able to hit level 45 (with two unique characters) before I laid down my sword.
I can understand how this can become a massive addiction for some folks, but I can also understand why others just never make it to level 60 in World of Warcraft (WoW).
I contribute my gaming downfall to a new baby boy that is now five months old, but mostly, I must admit, the Xbox 360 has taken most of my interest off of WoW and onto other more varied games with shorter time requirements. There are two “in game” reasons that also helped shorten the lifespan of this MMO: server population and lack of a solid storyline.
The first “in game” reason is simple: I am paying $15/mo. to play a game, not wait in a login queue in hopes to play. Besides earlier server outages that would put me offline for five or more hours this forty minute login queue each night at 9PM EDT was too rough. I pay for satellite, phone, electricity, gas, and many other monthly charges and I get my service constantly and when I want it. I've never had my power turned off in my house because "too many people where using it." If you cannot scale, this is not my problem, but I will not pay for it to persist.
The second reason was a lack of any formal storyline. The Warcraft franchise has always interested me from an RTS standpoint but as an MMORPG it is fairly weak. The best part the WoW game environment is the choice in different classes, races, and professions. The world was fairly large at first which was due to the travel time to get from place to place. I admit I've not seen the entire world at this point, but I can predict the next fifty quests: find something, kill it a hundred times and pray for the drop needed to turn in the quest.
There is another annoying fact about WoW, it did not contribute to my departing though. In WoW everyone you game with must be on the same server and on the same side (Horde or Alliance) or communication is impossible. Nothing is more annoying then meeting up with a friend who you find is a fellow WoW player to then find out he/she is on realm “Agamaggon” while you're on realm “Perenolde.” You both are playing the same game but in all reality you're not playing the same game . “Massive Multiplayer” doesn’t mean, to me, massive subscriber base but only able to game with 10% of them.
So what makes WoW even a viable consideration with other large RPG games like ArenaNet’s Guild Wars, and Turbine’s Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO)?
The WoW experience from levels one to forty was definitely worth the monthly charge. There are many concepts in WoW that might not be revolutionary but were definitely drawing factors to the game environment. The big interest holding aspects of WoW involved the Auction House and the primary/secondary profession system. I spent countless hours just making leather armor and selling it on the Auction House to make cash and raise my skills for new armor and items that would be useful to me and my guild.
The most draining aspects of WoW from a "responsible" and "busy" adult gamer standpoint would be the travel times from town to town and the dungeon instances. Moving from one town to another required travel by zeppelin, boat, flight, or hoofing it. That means I could easily spend twenty minutes going from one far off destination to another. Some nights I have a twenty minute window to play video games so I could sit and watch my Tauren travel from Ogrammir to Faralis by Wyvern or I could race two silver metal cups in Project Gotham Racing 3 on my Xbox 360.
The dungeon instances were long adventures crawling through some of the nastiest scenarios in the game. The enemies tend to drop much higher valued items in a dungeon at the cost of a very long session of gaming. On average a dungeon instance would take three to five consecutive hours of gaming with a party of five adventurers. If one or two had to leave for personal reasons then most of the party had to disband (if they could not find replacements). Many dungeons were left half finished due to time restrictions. Those dungeons I did defeat usually kept me up until 3AM or later in order to complete all quests for that specific instance. This can be very tiring.
The road to level 60 did not seem like an interesting one. Once you hit level 60 in WoW most people see only two outlets: Grind for awesome weapons in 30 man dungeon raids or play the few PvP scenarios that exist and bring up your PvP rank. If I have to do either of those things to make the game “fun” then I do consider the game to be finished and time to move on. I do not have the time nor patients to spend three to five hours in a dungeon with a bunch of people I don't know (probably half of which I don't want to ever meet) nor do I want to commit myself to gaining honor ranks in a PvP environment which becomes so competitive for rank that it would take me a year or more to get to the highest ranks possible (and about 4+ hours of dedication each day seven days a week). I have worked in jobs that would be considered less work then this behavior.
So where does this leave me? It leaves me bored with two level 45 “toons” and fifteen dollars less every month in my RL ("real life") bank account. I played enough to say that I've had fun and experienced an MMO for the first time since Ultima Online. However, I leave with a feeling of "what's next?" It seems that since the birth of Ultima Online very little progress has been made in changing the flow and design of the MMORPG genre. Will DDO or some other MMO change the face of history or will they be just another time sink?
CodeMonkey
I contribute my gaming downfall to a new baby boy that is now five months old, but mostly, I must admit, the Xbox 360 has taken most of my interest off of WoW and onto other more varied games with shorter time requirements. There are two “in game” reasons that also helped shorten the lifespan of this MMO: server population and lack of a solid storyline.
The first “in game” reason is simple: I am paying $15/mo. to play a game, not wait in a login queue in hopes to play. Besides earlier server outages that would put me offline for five or more hours this forty minute login queue each night at 9PM EDT was too rough. I pay for satellite, phone, electricity, gas, and many other monthly charges and I get my service constantly and when I want it. I've never had my power turned off in my house because "too many people where using it." If you cannot scale, this is not my problem, but I will not pay for it to persist.
The second reason was a lack of any formal storyline. The Warcraft franchise has always interested me from an RTS standpoint but as an MMORPG it is fairly weak. The best part the WoW game environment is the choice in different classes, races, and professions. The world was fairly large at first which was due to the travel time to get from place to place. I admit I've not seen the entire world at this point, but I can predict the next fifty quests: find something, kill it a hundred times and pray for the drop needed to turn in the quest.
So what makes WoW even a viable consideration with other large RPG games like ArenaNet’s Guild Wars, and Turbine’s Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO)?
The WoW experience from levels one to forty was definitely worth the monthly charge. There are many concepts in WoW that might not be revolutionary but were definitely drawing factors to the game environment. The big interest holding aspects of WoW involved the Auction House and the primary/secondary profession system. I spent countless hours just making leather armor and selling it on the Auction House to make cash and raise my skills for new armor and items that would be useful to me and my guild.
The most draining aspects of WoW from a "responsible" and "busy" adult gamer standpoint would be the travel times from town to town and the dungeon instances. Moving from one town to another required travel by zeppelin, boat, flight, or hoofing it. That means I could easily spend twenty minutes going from one far off destination to another. Some nights I have a twenty minute window to play video games so I could sit and watch my Tauren travel from Ogrammir to Faralis by Wyvern or I could race two silver metal cups in Project Gotham Racing 3 on my Xbox 360.
The dungeon instances were long adventures crawling through some of the nastiest scenarios in the game. The enemies tend to drop much higher valued items in a dungeon at the cost of a very long session of gaming. On average a dungeon instance would take three to five consecutive hours of gaming with a party of five adventurers. If one or two had to leave for personal reasons then most of the party had to disband (if they could not find replacements). Many dungeons were left half finished due to time restrictions. Those dungeons I did defeat usually kept me up until 3AM or later in order to complete all quests for that specific instance. This can be very tiring.
So where does this leave me? It leaves me bored with two level 45 “toons” and fifteen dollars less every month in my RL ("real life") bank account. I played enough to say that I've had fun and experienced an MMO for the first time since Ultima Online. However, I leave with a feeling of "what's next?" It seems that since the birth of Ultima Online very little progress has been made in changing the flow and design of the MMORPG genre. Will DDO or some other MMO change the face of history or will they be just another time sink?
CodeMonkey
