Understanding why you might be playing World of Warcraft

[thegame88]

TLDR migh eaad t,prrpow

But you felt the need to post? Useless comments will be useless.
OT : Was a nice read. I've tried validating my reason to keep my subscription active, even though i login maybe once a week say hello to people on my friends list and logout, I came to the conclusion the game is just crap, simple as that.
The game has been nerfed and dumbed down into the ground, I don't even need to buy arrows for my hunter? No need to level pets, i no longer have a talent tree ... it's all a one way path and the level of customization is pa-th-et-ic. You walk around the main city and everysingle character is a clone of eachother.
It reminds me of call of duty, each expansion pack is the same as a call of duty release. Hype. Trying to live upto expectations. Cataclysm is equal to Boring Ops.
WoW is constantly trying to live upto the standards of CoD4.
However, it is 2011 ... and games aplenty are about to be released with the qualities and standards Blizzard can only dream of living upto.
My real ID has emptied out, and rightfully so. I wanted to give Cata a chance, but who was i kidding. The game is an absolute shit-tip and my copy shall enter the bin.

[aurevoir1]

I thought the game was so interesting when i first tried the free trial, previously i had never played an mmo an didn't even know what it was. Its slowly become alot worse over the years and i just use the game now to fill me free time, mostly my bot just farms and i just work the AH and raid when i know i have the time. I cant even count the amount of times i sold my accounts to only start a new one a few weeks later....Id say atleast 10-15 times... No that ill be studying for my personal trainers certificate ill be dropping wow to focus on that, but who knows maybe once ive completed it ill come back again...

[sagiquarius]

. I cant even count the amount of times i sold my accounts to only start a new one a few weeks later....Id say atleast 10-15 times... No that ill be studying for my personal trainers certificate ill be dropping wow to focus on that, but who knows maybe once ive completed it ill come back again...

Have you considered you may have a mild addiction problem? I've heard plenty of smokers and drunks say something much similar-of quitting multiple times only to return. I don't otherwise understand why one would do this to themselves. It's fun?

[thebigman]

honestly this is all obvious, then again, All games are like this. Progress to become better and you da shit. Trading card games, FPS's, MMO's all games involving other people have these elements.

[Doodac]

Loved this and the previous articles, I think they bring out a strong opinion. But as much as it does, keep in mind that this is still personal, as you clearly stated. I still believe that the hardcore raiders or even new players are being manipulated (or 'encouraged') into playing this game. Chances are that if no manipulation would have happened in some part of ANYTHING, nothing would have happened. (Yes, even IRL). I have tried to quit, might even be addicted, who knows, but I can tell you why I will keep playing: Friends. If we had any other game, with same kind of lifespan (Most games don't, lets face it), then I can tell you that we would most definetly be playing that and have quitted WoW, we don't play for loot, we play because we know how to play the game and because we have fun doing it, no loot is considered in all of this, its just a nice price to get while having fun really. On the other hand; we might just try heroin or meth. (please excuse my language, english isnt my natural language )

[aurevoir1]

Have you considered you may have a mild addiction problem? I've heard plenty of smokers and drunks say something much similar-of quitting multiple times only to return. I don't otherwise understand why one would do this to themselves. It's fun?

i guess it could be possible, i mean i dont ignore my freinds/family to play wow, i just play when im at home alone and not doing anything else productive. if i had an incentive to quit id be all for it.

A good example of me quitting and starting up is when i quit cuz between work and living with my gf i ddint have any time to play so i stopped, now shes working over seas until september so i hav that extra time and i started playing again to fill it up. i could give u 10 more examples of the somewhat same situation.

Smoking and drinking have huge health issues associated with them and theres tons of incentive to quit like living longer... i cant think of any negative impact wow has on me other than the occasional lol u play wow

[WizardTrokair]

Well written and thoughtful analysis of why people play. Def. killed some time before I had to leave work today. +rep

I also played for a lot of the reasons stated in the OP. I have since given up... just lost all interest in "keeping up with the Jonses". I currently only log on to make gold (which I sell to a RL friend), or to explore and make exploration videos (there's always something new to find!).

[biorpg]

I still like WoW, killing things is fun, as for raids being hard they aren't that really, I went into bh with no clue how fight went or even how boss looked and the mt had no clue either, then some dps accidently pulled boss and we just winged it and won

Baradin Hold is VoA of cata. It is meant to be easy for a pug raid in pvp gear.

Seriously, it's been almost 8 months since Cata came out and all they have released was 2 re-made dungeons on top of the already limited end-game content (In comparison to previous expansions)

Blizzard did mention(and in some cases, I agree) that they have released many content patches sooner than they would have liked. Particularly their release of ToC shortly after Ulduar, which effectively took almost all focus away from the obviously more epic of the two raids.
Personally, in this content, 8 months looks to be about perfect for our pretty casual guild to progress as far as we can without putting too much time and effort into clearing those last few bosses.
Sure the top guilds have farmed sinestra for 20+ weeks, but the type of player who would farm every week until the next tier, is the type who likes the game enough to wait and not care too much.
On the other end of the spectrum you have the 'friends and family' guilds, or the players who are on-par with those guilds who feel overwhelmed when new content is released because they have barely made it halfway through the last content.
This is, in my opinion, why Blizzard has chosen to release new content more slowly.(I also agree that they have been very peculiar and cheap in their reasons being not developing 'X' feature, or fixing the huge problem of 'Y'

Edit: Thought I'd mention that my guild's progress is 8/13h 25man

[Confidence]

Through this post I'll be talking from personal experience, as well as speculating some of the psychology behind the game and it's “drawing point” that allures people in such a Siren like manner.

There is a psychology behind MMOs; I believe it to be the availability of an environment where a person can communicate freely with others without direct consequence (along with everything else: the graphics, content, etc.).

[Sn00p]

Thanks for all of the feedback guys, it's been interesting reading it (although some of it is moot in regard to a point made in the post at some point, which shows a slightly selective read on behalf of those particular audience members)!

[tottelol]

Excellent article! Honestly I don't understand how people can enjoy playing by hand at level 85. Doing the same shit over and over again - every day. You could be out doing something with your life - learning, working out, meeting new people, etc. Instead you sit there doing something that's about as productive as looking at a wall. This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time. (yay fight club) One day you're going to look back with regret without being able to understand why you wasted so much time on this game.
Slightly irrelevant I guess. Had to get it out.

[suntzzz]

I didn't read the entire post but I just want to point out that the bit on marketing is what every company does. Also pretty few games today allow for a high degree of mastery. I can certainly see the problem with people who have no self control but in general wow isn't THAT bad. Especially if you bot

[aurevoir1]

Excellent article! Honestly I don't understand how people can enjoy playing by hand at level 85. Doing the same shit over and over again - every day. You could be out doing something with your life - learning, working out, meeting new people, etc.

Who plays wow every waking moment of the day? No one....

[Remus3]

Excellent article! Honestly I don't understand how people can enjoy playing by hand at level 85. Doing the same shit over and over again - every day. You could be out doing something with your life - learning, working out, meeting new people, etc. Instead you sit there doing something that's about as productive as looking at a wall. This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time. (yay fight club) One day you're going to look back with regret without being able to understand why you wasted so much time on this game.
Slightly irrelevant I guess. Had to get it out.

In relative terms, doing social actions, attempting to work for something that is a luxury, smoking, most entertainment (like watching movies etc) anything we do is wasting one minute of your life away as you do it.

Let people play as they want, do with their lives as they want, and considering video games are interactive movies.... what makes social interaction while watching movies any better? Because it is socially accepted versus sitting in front of a screen and enjoying the time you are doing something? excluding one thing to better degrade another is a circle jerk.


in essence, life is bs, your interactions with others are meaningless as a whole from a civilian level because your existence and everyone else is that 6 foot deep plot of dirt.

so i reiterate, who gives a flying fk people do as they want.


not /le hate or anything.. just pointing out an argument without excluding certain things due to societal values imposed by others.

[MadameGrip]

no one cares why you stoppped.