Judgement: World of Wafflecraft

Editor’s Note: I would love to say that this was delayed by my crippling addiction to the game. It wasn’t– actually I haven’t even logged in in the two weeks since I wrote this due to the permanent job hunt and some contract work I’m doing. I had intended to have a very scathing rebuttal to my final opinion, penned by none other than an employee of Blizzard itself. However, it was not to be. Something about him screaming “NO! NO! DON’T MAKE ME, THEY’LL LASH ME REPEATEDLY!” kinda soured me on the concept; though I did offer the Taskmasters of Blizzard five bucks to lash him anyway. The bleeding’s nearly stopped, he tells me. Anyway, I do apologize for this being as late as it is, and I also apologize for the lack of updates. The total non-surprise GTA project will start on the 25th. There may even be another project going on, too. We just don’t know what The Mysterious Future holds. So, without further adieu, the end of the World. Of Warcraft. Thingy. Yeah, that sounded cooler when I said it out loud.

I started this project in the hopes that even if all I got out of the whole thirty days in Azeroth experiment was my mock-on going, then that was all right. However, here after just over thirty days, I’ve found that quite frankly, I’ve grown accustomed to my race. I don’t readily play the game as often as I feel I should, but the time I’ve spent was actually… enjoyable. To a certain extent.

Let’s talk about the second Interrogation, before we get into any conclusions. I got in as Ceilai a few minutes early, and decided that the best way to go about giving the PvP a fair shot would be to try it again. This time, with a weaker character who, it should be noted, I hadn’t actually played in weeks. I gave myself every deliberate disadvantage, and even with that… I still did far better than I had as the Tauren Shaman. I actually killed other players. I had killing blows registered, and more than just two or three. I think on that first run I had eight or nine, and the second one I had five or six. A lot of it, of course, was due to my team– they were in fact the way we won the first match– but I was playing my support role the best way I knew how, and actually felt like I was contributing to the team. In some small way, I liked that. Granted, the fact that Warsong Gulch resets completely negated the feeling of having accomplished something good within the overall framewerk of the game, but meh. I’ll take my ego-boosts where I can get them. Aside from that, and a couple more quests/grind sessions, nothing terribly interesting to report. Still nothing in the way of communication.

Let’s go back to the beginning, then, and take a look at what I had to say about the game. My biggest problems with the game were the oversaturation of players (most of whom were jerks), the requirement of PvP play, and the fact that the game was totally inaccessible to casual players. One point at a time, then:

A large enough player base actually reduces the immersion an MMO player has in the world, as through login queues, zone oversaturation, and GM non-responsiveness, he or she is made to feel increasingly insignificant. To some extent, I didn’t have this exact problem during my playthrough. I ran into the login queue problem exactly twice throughout my entire run, and the zones never felt like they were far too crowded (though they certainly had their spots where a lot of people were gathered). As I never needed to call a GM, there wasn’t that problem either. However, the player base is too large. It takes away from the immersion when you’re handing over the one-of-its-kind vial of moonwell water to the druid, only to have to wait in line for the other nine people to do the same. Ditto for named-monster kills (Lady Sathrah, to be specific– I killed her, and then not an hour later she was still there). It’s also worth noting that the player base was completely hostile to new players. I had the exact same experience when I started up Ultima Online (didn’t even last a week there); nobody was willing to answer a question, or even tell me where to go to get the right information. I understand the argument of “you have a manual” but not everyone actually reads the manual. I read what I needed to know about combat, about the topics I’d heard about, and then I went in. The online help is pathetic at best and impossible to recall if you need it.

Forcing players into a PvP combat situation is akin to forcing players to be griefed; conversely, restricting players from PvP forces them into mindless grinding without any purpose. World of Warcraft does not provide enough PvE variety or non-combat PvP competition. Boy, was I wrong about this. There is literally a metric assload of stuff to do in the game. Granted, a lot of it revolves around going out and killing things, but it is possible to derive satisfaction out of the game in a non-combat situation. While some players go out and hunt things, others buy and sell services as enchanters and crafters. A good deal of money can be made just through harvesting items like herbs or minerals. While I can’t say anything for roleplaying– as I didn’t actually join an RP server– I’m sure a lot of that happens and it can’t be all bad. I was dead wrong about a lack of PvE variety. However, PvP is always combat. And, fortunately, completely optional. So, I likely won’t ever set foot in any PvP setting ever again. EVAR.

The “rest” system does nothing to contribute to casual players and in fact serves as an artificial hindrance to the “hardcore” crowd, who will overcome this through tedious grinding. This is dead-on, but for a different reason. I played very infrequently. I imagine that if I played more often, I’d have noticed a difference. However, as it stands, I didn’t see anything that made the rest system any different than normal play. Because I was always in rested mode. After the initial period, I let my characters sit for days on end and accumulated so much rest that I never saw the end of the rest bar on Sunday evening. And this was after gaining a full two levels. TWO LEVELS and I still had enough rest to take me into a third. The rest system is completely ineffectual. It’s nice if you have a lot of alternate characters and rotate between them– and the randomness of the servers being up or available pretty much necessitates that– but ultimately it confers no end-user difference.

As for observations that I picked up along the way. I’d like to address this to all but maybe three people in the Anvilmar “community”: YOU ALL SUCK. The multiplayer experience I had on the server– a “normal” server– did absolutely nothing to convince me that the game was worth paying $15 a month for, let alone playing at all. Being hostile to new players, challenging them to duels they can’t hope to win (and calling them chicken when they decline, in broadcast, and saying you’ll make a GM call if they continue to decline), and not even correcting them when they ask stupid questions will not endear me to you folks. So to all of you who were hoping I’d have something good to say about you players, I don’t. My initial assumption that you are all diseased asshats still stands with only a handful of exceptions.

All that said, I’m still going to play.

That’s right, I have decided to stay on in Azeroth. This trip wasn’t just an experiment, it was a learning experience. I figured out what to do and what not to do. And armed with this knowledge, I’m going to go back and try again. The reason behind it is very simple: because sometimes it takes a little work before you get to a great amount of fun.

When I first started City of Heroes, it was at the urging of my good friend (and fellow Unbeliever) PsychoPez. I played for two months before I let the subscription lapse; mostly because I didn’t play it terribly often, but primarily because I just wasn’t having much fun. I had picked two really bad archetypes for beginners to play, Blaster and Controller; Blasters had no defense back then and Controllers had no offense– plus, there was debt below Level 10 as well, so both got into a permadebt situation PDQ. It would be over a year before I reinstalled and started up again during a period of unemployment, because it was cheaper than buying a new game at that point; also, Mike had mentioned that some of the recent changes had made the game much more forgiving. He helped me out with a new character, and I slowly made connections within the game and within the community. It was tough at first, and occasionally I had periods where I said, “Forget this, I’m not progressing”. But the best solution actually was to play a different character. To take on the same content, from a while back, from a different angle. And occasionally with help that I didn’t have before.

WoW is, I think, the same way. I have made a lot of mistakes, and I’ve not exactly made things easier on myself through some of my choices. However, when I’m actually playing the game– even just grinding– it’s fun. Is it fun for everyone who plays it? Of course not. I know of at least one person who will call me retarded for continuing to play. Making connections will help out the experience immensely, I think. And I already have a standing invitation to a guild composed of the former members of the DDR Erie crew. I think I’ll just go right ahead and make up that character tonight, in fact. A Night Elf Hunter, of course.

The Good: The game itself is fun, for folks with a certain predisposition to the genre (I’m not an “MMO Hater” as some folks may have described me– which actually means I have to go and find someone who truly is one and give them this Auto Assault trial disk I’ve been hanging on to since May). The world is very well developed, and the story is interesting (where it’s not ripped straight from Tolkien/Warhammer). Technically speaking, it’s damn pretty and damn economical on the resources.
The Bad: The playerbase on the normal servers are all asses. Online help is just plain useless. The user interface, by default, has a LOT of flaws. The minimap is also useless and a lack of navigational aids really makes moving between areas you know too difficult– Blizzard could learn a LOT from Guild Wars. Bits of the story have been lifted from other sources, but if you’re not a fanboy you likely won’t care (and despite Pez’s attempts, I still know very little about the Warhammer universe, so what’s been lifted here doesn’t affect me).
Final Opinion: Slightly good. But ever-so-slightly. If you’ve never been fond of the MMO model then World of Warcraft won’t win you over– it may even drive you away completely. But if you’re willing to do a little bit of work for a potential lot of reward– all of it virtual, except for the social interaction– it could be a great game. Assuming, of course, you know people who already play. Let’s call this one “cautious optimism.”

3 comments September 15th, 2006