MaxFan

February 05, 2009 at 11:28am

"Wait you're telling me that I can't dislike a game or express that opinion? Alright...um...WoW sux? Yup, your reasons are not important and I'll tell you why. "

Im not telling you a thing.  Activision/Blizzard's Bottom line IS.  You have every right to not like or play a game and may express any opinion you like wherever and however it suits you so lang as said opinion does not involve harming another human being or that human biengs property (real or Intellectual for which you would then be liable for whatever damages were assessed to you by a court of competent jurisdiction)

"Number 1, Um....There aren't any MMOs without an incredible backstory or uber amounts of fluff in it." 

Blizzards story line is gripping enough that people want more of it and they tell their friends about it.

Number 2....I can't seem to find an MMO that doesn't allow you to progress and evolve in your character...IE level up. And the same goes for unranked status given to you by others players (actually that's a real life thing too oMG!)

Blizzrd does this better than its closest competitor by a long long ways

"Number 3...EQ, EQ2, Asheron's Call, Asheron's Call 2, Shadowbane, Age of Conan, Warhammer:AoR...MMO's new and old have always had multiple channels for lines of communication from selling stuff in market channels to guild and group channels. This is certainly not new and not worthy of mention. "

No it isnt new.  Worth of mention?  of course it is else why did you isolate this as a rebuttal point.  You opened the door to debate therefore it is worthy of mention.  Yes the other MMO's have some form of communication.  However, as far as i am aware it is done better by Blizzard than by anyone else in the same market segment.  Again, people tend to vote with their pocketbooks.  Looks like Blizzard got elected.

"Number 4...Please spare me, I'm getting tired of this you haven't mentioned anything unique...show me an MMO without instances or quests...cause I don't know any. "

Its the only one that has instances and quests that engender a spirit of teamwork based on "missing attributes"  (what attributes or abilities i am missing i must make up for in my groups selection else the run will fail, and I must have communication and teamwork to make it successfully out of the instance alive)  dont misquote me or read out of context what i described.  I dislike it and it leads to opinion without forethought something you seem to be full of along with the required amount of Horse Hockey

"Your number 5 is a crock of bs. Any pc game with an online capability has that...you know TS and Vent are used for more than just MMOs. They are used in FPS's too. I've been part of a guild for 5 years now...their main attraction is FPS...oh snap. Please don't act like this is one of your pros for the game that we have somehow missed. "

See number 4  Asked and answered

"Number 6...okay I see where this is going...most games have a hard time doing well with establishing a stable economy...except that WoW's economy is not stable ...it's more stable then others but it isn't stable...I can still find power levelings services and gold sellers online that will sell to anyone, so it's economy is just as plagued as any other. "

No you obviously do NOT see else you wouldnt have typed this diatribe to begin with.  However,  the economy of WoW is as stable or perhaps MORE stable than the current global economic meltdown we have seen over the last two years.  Prices may be inflated at the release of an expansion but it sttles back into predictable patterns from which usueful information may be gained on what is selling and what isnt in a short amount of time.   As to the gold sellers and the farmers.  they exist because World of Warcraft has a stable ingame economy no one in real life would be able to make a profit on an economy in virtual space without the economy in that virtual space being somewhat predictable.

"Number 7...is also a crock of shit...this is not an outlet...you want an outlet...go out running...just sitting there and doing minimal movement and losing sleep over it will increase aggression. Lets try and be honest...if your aggression is stemmed from outside IE the real world...you have to still face that problem when you stop playing the game...so really it's an ESCAPE not an outlet. On the other hand, running does a number of beneficial things, it causes an edorphin rush, on top of that, it gives your body a chance to exhaust itself, which in of itself is already theraputic...but lets concentrate on something else here, your mind is free to think of other things, while you exhaust yourself your mind is calming down...games aren't exactly an activity that recquires minimal brain function, so after you're done gaming you're not going to be able to tackle the problem ahead because soon as you go back to work, or have to deal with the kids, you're still aggressive. "

ummm Outlet.  You may run you may drink you may smoke you may eat you may play WoW you may do almost ANY activity and it become an escape.  You think all runners are healthy?  Two Words for you there partner  Jim Fixx. 

It provides an outlet for some.  I get the same endorphin rush that a runner does when Illidan drops as I do from getting a second wind.  After you finish running you will still have to deal with the issue that was bugging you. 

"Number 9...Omg you're serious...you're saying that Einstein should have just given up on math instead of continuing to try his hand at other kinds of math...the only reason we have progressed is because we continue to push ourselves...you epose we remain stagnant...or that we just accept that we're fat and not bother leading any sort of a healthy lifestyle...no just play a game...and anyone who falls to peer pressure...that's a pretty sad individual...they have after school activities that help with that, that foster things like teamwork...hell going to the Y will help, or just picking up paintball and learning the mechanics of that...MaxFan says we should just give up and not try to find anything we're good at...anywhere you go you will find peer pressure...those who cave to it never get anywhere and they will always been unhappy...and seek more ways to escape into some fantasy...which btw is a great window for psychosis."

No, I advocate that we excel in those activities that do interest us if Tensor Equations fascinate you, then be my guest.  Perhaps you will find an answer to the equations that allow all forms of matter and energy to be expressed as a single entity as Einstein did. 

If you are overweight then perhaps that is something that you should address.  Part of that might be doing something other than sitting in front of a Computer playing a fantasy based game part might be not watching 40 hours of tv per week either.  (didnt see you mention that illness so I mentioned it for you.)  You like paintball thats fine go play it.  I happen to like World of Warcraft and so do at last count approximately 15 million others.  Show me another MMO that can say that.  You know what?  You cant.  They dont exists yet.  When they do maybe ill be out there among them too.  Oh and Ad Hominem attacks tend to piss me off and make you look like an ass so please use rebuttal techniques that actually work.

 "Number 10..."  No comment on this one as none is needed from me to show you just how much of a carrot you are.  Keep drinking the koolaid from your favorite FPS vendor fanboy.

Blizzard has a model that works and works staggeringly well as evidenced by its lack of layoffs ( Hi Electronic Arts hows it going out there bud?) increases in its bottom lines (sorry Square, et cetera.) Dividend increases for its shareholders, and increased budgets for development of new games all around.  That spells success on Wall Street and on Main Street.  I challenge you to find a better working model than that.

  

 

Magius

February 04, 2009 at 8:17am

What is does, it does well and with style. I admit, it is not a game for everyone but it is a very cool game for those who like it. I simply can't agree with you that we play for the sake of playing or because we have vested so much time in it. I would say that for my particular taste there is no other MMO's that can compete with WoW. I played a good amount of them too: EQ, CoH/CoV, Lineage II, Vanguard, AD&D, Conan, War and a whole another host of korean MMOs. Everytime I was willing to try something new, being attracted to that new coat of paint, but content-wise all of them were lacking in one way or another.

 Let me tell you, I have put some hours into WoW but I am not afraid of jumping ship if something better comes along, but there is just not much out there. Now with the latest expansion WoW added a whole lot of different types of missions that are simply too fun (vehicle missions come to mind).

 Yeah, I like it, you don't, that gives you the right to explain why you dont like it. What it doesn't give you is the right to outright diss and insult the people that like the game. Because when you do, it just reveals that you really wish you liked the game but it pisses you off you can't have fun with it as the other 11+million players out there.

 As for the poster before you, for all we know he may be a kid that grew with WoW and that is all he knows.

 Fact is there are a lot of gamers playing WoW. Population actually grew with the expansion. It is a fun game. A lot of people hate whatever is on the top and will find anything, no matter how small, call it a fault and proclaim that is a reason why the game sucks.

Phated1

January 31, 2009 at 9:13am

So youre saying that just because WoW isnt 100% new, it sucks?  Well sir then you will be waiting a long time for a game that you like to come out.  WoW has been around for YEARS, and there is a reason for that.  WoW does NOT suck, it has alot of innovation, and it continues to provide new and better content.  Wow is also not stagnant, they add new features frequently. 

You also notice half of the games you mention don't even exist anymore!  And if they do they are failing.  The games that are coming out now are either poorly made or are very similar to wow.  And yes you are correct, a lot of people wont leave wow because they have so much invested into wow.  But you also have to compare that against the games that are coming out, AoC had a horrible launch followed by a severe lack of content/completeness.  WAR was very similar to WoW, and was just overall an unfun game.  Darkfall is the only game on the horizon that is going to be different than wow in any way.  I mean hell if you look at the games coming out now half of them are WoW clones.  The UI's even look the same.  Sure when wow came out it wasnt the first to do everything, but it was innovative, and still is.  Its still widely considered the gold standard for MMOs.

Nobody is saying you cant have an opinion.  However, an opinion is not "WoW Sucks" or "WoW is a terrible game".  An opinion is more like "I dislike wow" or "I wish wow had such and such a feature."  But broad statements like "WoW is a bad game because this feature was done in this other game first" is just dumb.  If blizzard had made their game without taking any features from any other game, well, the game would have nothing.  There have been far too many games out there for any one game to be 100% new.  Blizzard took those features, however, and improved on them.  Made them 100% better, so much so that most games copy blizzard's iteration of the features as opposed to the old versions.

MaxFan

February 05, 2009 at 11:38am

No. what you described would not actually be the Marxist/Leninist version of Communism that the old Soviet Union was based upon prior to WWII.  What you describe is a totalitarian economy.  That certainly is not what World of Warcraft's economy is based on.  While it is true that the virtual economy of this particular MMO has devices that allow the developers to tweak the economy should they so choose, the developers of this game have chosen on every occasion given to them to NOT tweak it. 

The few (relative) exceptions to this that are made is when an account is "hacked" by someone who is not the account owner (subscription payer) and the items from that account are restored to a state previously known to exist prior to the "hack" and this is done only once per account.  Second time it gets hacked its on the account owners head.

When the developers push content expansion it simply proves the capitalist model over and over again.  The new items are placed on the AH for much more than they are worth and someone else buys those items and establishes a pattern of buy and sell that ultimately effects change upon the economy stabilizing it further as time progresses.  this is capitalism in its pure form.  The value of an item is that which the market will bear.  Thos e who dont get that in the context of the game sell items for way more or less than they should and neither of those reaps a profit.  Only those in the middle of the Bell Curve end up profiting from the game.

Certainly doesnt sound like communism to me