I'm not going to tell you whether or not to play WoW, but I'm going to tell you what WoW really is. The fact is WoW's current players are predisposed to lie. This, however, was written by someone who cleared Naxx, created a new character (and subsiquently hit 70) when BC came out, and quit.
WoW is a game designed entirely on the principle of keeping people playing the game for as long as possible by any means possible. It functions by building a powerful social environment that does a good job of drawing players through the excessively boring parts of the game.
The first 69 levels of gameplay will be filled with extended periods of boredom followed by the ecstasy and excitement of an instance, with other stretches of boredom. The constant gear upgrading keeps said boredom exciting, however and is enough to keep most people playing. Failing that, the prospect of 10-, 20- and even 40-man raids keeps potential buyers excited, assuming that better playing is to come, as long as he/she/it toughs it through the rapid yet mind-numbingly boring level treadmill. The game is intimidatingly large at first giving the impression that there's variety and excitement to be had as the game goes on. It is during these first 69 levels that most people falsely proclaim the greatness of this game.
After a few days, weeks, months (depending on how fast you are -- there are people like myself that can do the level treadmill in a few days), you're level 70 and you've considered the ~$70 you've given Blizzard at this point to be a worthwhile investment. It is at this point that WoW's nature becomes implicit on the inside, and apparent to virtually everyone else. All of a sudden, the constant gear improvements stop and marginal changes in equipment (epic l00tz) become more and more distant. At first, you're eased into the crack cocaine equivelant that is raiding by the raiding-lite dungeons (in BC, that'd be Karazhan and the early 25-mans) and you realise that, despite the long periods of simply doing absolutely nothing of any fun (mat grinding, profession training, playing the market, epic flying mount, et certa), raiding is damn fun and seemingly worth the effort. But as you get into more serious raids where one mistake out of a 25 person group means literally weeks of wasted effort (it amuses me how people don't realise why the respawn timer is there), the raids, the enjoyment, get even further apart. Outside of raiding there's little to do of any entertainment (Battlegrounds being one of the few legitimately enjoyable excercises in the game but they have virtually no useful returns anymore and Blizzard has all but made twinking entirely pointless) that doesn't come with a massive wait time -- Professions come with whopping cooldowns, arena points arrive once a week (Blizzard's not stupid, they know it takes about 15 minutes to play 10 games), daily repeatable quests are largely the only good source of reputation for some factions and can only be done once a day, heroics (further exemplification of the raiding lite philosophy) can only be done once daily and are once again largely the only reasonable source of reputation for some factions (try getting thrallmar rep doing nothing but regular Shattered Halls like I had to do)... surely you get my point.
Eventually, after you've nearly completed your gear set and you're just living between raids, you realise that you've become what every other WoW player becomes: An individual that by all accounts hates the game but still logs on a daily basis. You contemplate quitting, but really, all that wasted effort? All of those hours put into the game, gone? On top of this, the social pressure of knowing that you let down a massive guild of people, your companions, your brothers/sisters in arms. Peer pressure becomes a powerful weapon in Blizzard's arsenal, and it's usually only when people decide to quit in groups that people truely stop playing (like my friends and I did). But you know you're not going to quit -- the high of a raid, the satisfaction of the marginal improvement, it's all there, and it's all for only $15 a month. You get so close to completing your gear, you hate the game so much but there's just a bit more...
And then the expansion comes out. New content. More raids. More gear. Everything you worked for replaced by fedex quest rewards. All of that effort, all of that time, gone in a flash, when some blood elf hands you a staff that's exponentially better than anything on the face of the earth prior to the expansion. And then it all starts again. The grind, the raiding, the rush, the enjoyment, the hatred. But it won't be long until there's more content, more ways to improve.
And the funny thing is, having written that, long after many of my friends and I, diehard WoW players at times, had quit the game and realised what was really going on, I still frequently feel the urge to play the game again, to go on the website, renew my subscription, and jump back into the action. And if I was a weaker person, I probably would.
Barring all that, just know this. WoW isn't a game to be played for two weeks -- it has the ability, moreso than most other games, to become a device of dominion and addiction. Know what you're getting into.
EDIT: IT's inaccurate to equate the money WoW's cost you in the money spent. It's much more accurate to measure it in how much money you could have made by not playing WoW.
Also, RO is fun in the right places (IE not on p2p servers).
WoW is a game designed entirely on the principle of keeping people playing the game for as long as possible by any means possible. It functions by building a powerful social environment that does a good job of drawing players through the excessively boring parts of the game.
The first 69 levels of gameplay will be filled with extended periods of boredom followed by the ecstasy and excitement of an instance, with other stretches of boredom. The constant gear upgrading keeps said boredom exciting, however and is enough to keep most people playing. Failing that, the prospect of 10-, 20- and even 40-man raids keeps potential buyers excited, assuming that better playing is to come, as long as he/she/it toughs it through the rapid yet mind-numbingly boring level treadmill. The game is intimidatingly large at first giving the impression that there's variety and excitement to be had as the game goes on. It is during these first 69 levels that most people falsely proclaim the greatness of this game.
After a few days, weeks, months (depending on how fast you are -- there are people like myself that can do the level treadmill in a few days), you're level 70 and you've considered the ~$70 you've given Blizzard at this point to be a worthwhile investment. It is at this point that WoW's nature becomes implicit on the inside, and apparent to virtually everyone else. All of a sudden, the constant gear improvements stop and marginal changes in equipment (epic l00tz) become more and more distant. At first, you're eased into the crack cocaine equivelant that is raiding by the raiding-lite dungeons (in BC, that'd be Karazhan and the early 25-mans) and you realise that, despite the long periods of simply doing absolutely nothing of any fun (mat grinding, profession training, playing the market, epic flying mount, et certa), raiding is damn fun and seemingly worth the effort. But as you get into more serious raids where one mistake out of a 25 person group means literally weeks of wasted effort (it amuses me how people don't realise why the respawn timer is there), the raids, the enjoyment, get even further apart. Outside of raiding there's little to do of any entertainment (Battlegrounds being one of the few legitimately enjoyable excercises in the game but they have virtually no useful returns anymore and Blizzard has all but made twinking entirely pointless) that doesn't come with a massive wait time -- Professions come with whopping cooldowns, arena points arrive once a week (Blizzard's not stupid, they know it takes about 15 minutes to play 10 games), daily repeatable quests are largely the only good source of reputation for some factions and can only be done once a day, heroics (further exemplification of the raiding lite philosophy) can only be done once daily and are once again largely the only reasonable source of reputation for some factions (try getting thrallmar rep doing nothing but regular Shattered Halls like I had to do)... surely you get my point.
Eventually, after you've nearly completed your gear set and you're just living between raids, you realise that you've become what every other WoW player becomes: An individual that by all accounts hates the game but still logs on a daily basis. You contemplate quitting, but really, all that wasted effort? All of those hours put into the game, gone? On top of this, the social pressure of knowing that you let down a massive guild of people, your companions, your brothers/sisters in arms. Peer pressure becomes a powerful weapon in Blizzard's arsenal, and it's usually only when people decide to quit in groups that people truely stop playing (like my friends and I did). But you know you're not going to quit -- the high of a raid, the satisfaction of the marginal improvement, it's all there, and it's all for only $15 a month. You get so close to completing your gear, you hate the game so much but there's just a bit more...
And then the expansion comes out. New content. More raids. More gear. Everything you worked for replaced by fedex quest rewards. All of that effort, all of that time, gone in a flash, when some blood elf hands you a staff that's exponentially better than anything on the face of the earth prior to the expansion. And then it all starts again. The grind, the raiding, the rush, the enjoyment, the hatred. But it won't be long until there's more content, more ways to improve.
And the funny thing is, having written that, long after many of my friends and I, diehard WoW players at times, had quit the game and realised what was really going on, I still frequently feel the urge to play the game again, to go on the website, renew my subscription, and jump back into the action. And if I was a weaker person, I probably would.
Barring all that, just know this. WoW isn't a game to be played for two weeks -- it has the ability, moreso than most other games, to become a device of dominion and addiction. Know what you're getting into.
EDIT: IT's inaccurate to equate the money WoW's cost you in the money spent. It's much more accurate to measure it in how much money you could have made by not playing WoW.
Also, RO is fun in the right places (IE not on p2p servers).
Last edited:
