World of Warcraft
Since most of the people who have the potential of reading this blog play the game, I figure I'd give my two cents on the thing. For those who don't have any idea about me and games (of which there are very few), I am very critical and overly analytical. Jaryd and I pissed each other off quite a bit for a long time with his tendency to do the same about movies. Luckily, comparing my tendency for games, and his for movies gave us enough understanding that we kinda just stopped talking about those things. :P
Anyway, I have stopped playing World of Warcraft recently, and while I don't entirely regret it, I also occasionally miss playing. For the flat review of the game, it's an excellent game, and probably exactly what the MMORPG community needed, as it was heading for a down swing. Much like the CCG market about a year or two after Magic's release, the environment needed a draw to inject fresher blood into the genre. Enter Pokemon, and a whole new era was created. The comparisons are very startling to me, between CCG's and MMORPG's. That might be a subject for another post, though.
Almost all decent MMORPG's have two aspects, PvE and PvP, I'll deal with the former first. I don't think any MMORPG has quite gotten PvE "right" just yet, but to its credit, WoW has come closer than most. The Holy Grail of PvE environments is one that generates a quality experience both in group and solo play, reduces the impact of other players' griefing, through a variety of fashions, and provides interesting enough variation to gameplay to keep people interested.
The best game as far as this goes so far, that I've found, is City of Heroes. The first instance of instanced adventuring I can think of, City of Heroes had this done right. The storyline and plot behind the game is engaging, to the point that the first time our little intrepid group ran into Dr. Vahzilok, I remarked "holy shit," and the other three in the room went "what?" and ran over to my machine to see him. The game truly generates an epic feel to taking down bigger baddies, not through simply making them tough (though they are), but by building them up through extensive interaction with their factions throughout the game. WoW accomplishes this to some extent, but you never get the true feel of the enemy. In City of Heroes, you spend time stopping Dr. Vahzilok from poisoning water supplies, destroying refineries, and whatnought. In WoW, you fight the Defias for a while, and then, in the span of two or three quests, are suddenly made aware of Van Cleef, as though he popped out of nowhere.
The actual gameplay in PvE for WoW is second-to-none. The fact that every character can solo is generally an advantage, though it leads one to question why you ever group. If you can level reasonably solo, there's never a reason to group while leveling, a serious issue my favorite game has at the moment. But the gameplay itself is engaging.
The biggest knock on leveling and PvE in WoW is the lack of variation between characters. Most Rogues do largely the same thing, and while they might have a few different damage bonuses, there's not a lot of variation. While your average Electric and Energy Blaster in City of Heroes are similar, they are getting better at creating variation.
But, the biggest knocks I have on WoW in general come in the PvP arena. There are a lot of complaints here, and a good 99% of my experience will be drawn from Dark Age of Camelot, which, to my view, offers the most rewarding PvP environment in the genre. The two biggest flaws that WoW has are lack of reward, and lack of control.
Generally speaking, there is no reason to participate in PvP, aside from giggling at ganking some lowbie. While I do admit that there is an appeal to increasing machismo via online gaming, for the most part, it is less rewarding without some kind of tangible improvement to your character. The addition of the PvP items was a good move, but items don't generally modify your character that much. About the only real exception to this rule in the genre are the Artifacts in DAoC.
By comparison, DAoC offers abilities as rewards for participating in PvP, and these abilities are available from level 1 (assuming one can gain enough Realm Points to buy an ability). While there are some disadvantages to this system, the foremost being that you have to accumulate some amount of PvP experience before your character is "complete," it does give a feeling that there's more to the game than just griefing people. You have every reason to go to Thidranki and beat up on the other realms, instead of leveling. In a lot of cases, it improves your leveling (most casters can benefit from Mystic Crystal Lore, for example.)
On the subject of control, it's a sticky subject amongst the fan base. Most players do not like elements of control in their game. Anything which makes you incapable of doing anything for a while is generally perceived as a negative. However, few generally think about the flip side, and don't have to anymore, you can just look at WoW.
There is very little strategy involved in WoW conflicts, save solo, due to the fact that there is no control. Control is a necessary element to strategy, otherwise, it's simply a game of dealing and mitigating damage. This is doubly a concern in WoW, due to the fact that there is so little damage mitigation in the game, overall. As a caster, or other "soft" target, you're basically dead from the beginning of the fight. Your only hope is to output enough damage to make your death worthwhile.
The DAoC comparison is minimal, as there is a massive amount of control in the game, even three classes completely devoted to the concept, and all soft targets have some form of control they can use to increase survivability. While the concept of a dead caster walking still exists (ask your friendly neighborhood Sorcerer about how often he dies), there is, at least, a belief that you can do something to save yourself, and sometimes, the perception is enough to make things more palatable.
I think this is the biggest problem that WoW has. The PvE experience is rewarding and fun, as is required for any MMORPG, which makes it excellent for the casual player, but there is nothing to transfer those players into more competitive and devoted gamers. The casual gamer will move on as soon as something better comes along, though, to WoW's advantage, there's unlikely to be anything better for a while. The Grail here being Chess, the "easy to learn, difficult to master" concept. While I'm not meaning to infer that WoW is easy to master, the point is that there's very little beyond what you get in the first 10 levels of the game, there's just more of it.
The addition of a robust and rewarding PvP system would do well to make WoW a force to be reckoned with, but I don't see it happening. The MMORPG out there with the best chance to get everything right, at the moment, is City of Heroes, which should be introducing a more comprehensive PvP system in City of Villains, to go with their already sterling PvE experience.
As I've said before, I think WoW is okay, and it'll probably be a good game in a couple of years. When they add some more classes, vary what they have a bit, and provide some focus on PvP, the game will become much more enjoyable. Right now, it's simply a pleasant diversion from the remainder of the MMORPG's out there.
Anyway, I have stopped playing World of Warcraft recently, and while I don't entirely regret it, I also occasionally miss playing. For the flat review of the game, it's an excellent game, and probably exactly what the MMORPG community needed, as it was heading for a down swing. Much like the CCG market about a year or two after Magic's release, the environment needed a draw to inject fresher blood into the genre. Enter Pokemon, and a whole new era was created. The comparisons are very startling to me, between CCG's and MMORPG's. That might be a subject for another post, though.
Almost all decent MMORPG's have two aspects, PvE and PvP, I'll deal with the former first. I don't think any MMORPG has quite gotten PvE "right" just yet, but to its credit, WoW has come closer than most. The Holy Grail of PvE environments is one that generates a quality experience both in group and solo play, reduces the impact of other players' griefing, through a variety of fashions, and provides interesting enough variation to gameplay to keep people interested.
The best game as far as this goes so far, that I've found, is City of Heroes. The first instance of instanced adventuring I can think of, City of Heroes had this done right. The storyline and plot behind the game is engaging, to the point that the first time our little intrepid group ran into Dr. Vahzilok, I remarked "holy shit," and the other three in the room went "what?" and ran over to my machine to see him. The game truly generates an epic feel to taking down bigger baddies, not through simply making them tough (though they are), but by building them up through extensive interaction with their factions throughout the game. WoW accomplishes this to some extent, but you never get the true feel of the enemy. In City of Heroes, you spend time stopping Dr. Vahzilok from poisoning water supplies, destroying refineries, and whatnought. In WoW, you fight the Defias for a while, and then, in the span of two or three quests, are suddenly made aware of Van Cleef, as though he popped out of nowhere.
The actual gameplay in PvE for WoW is second-to-none. The fact that every character can solo is generally an advantage, though it leads one to question why you ever group. If you can level reasonably solo, there's never a reason to group while leveling, a serious issue my favorite game has at the moment. But the gameplay itself is engaging.
The biggest knock on leveling and PvE in WoW is the lack of variation between characters. Most Rogues do largely the same thing, and while they might have a few different damage bonuses, there's not a lot of variation. While your average Electric and Energy Blaster in City of Heroes are similar, they are getting better at creating variation.
But, the biggest knocks I have on WoW in general come in the PvP arena. There are a lot of complaints here, and a good 99% of my experience will be drawn from Dark Age of Camelot, which, to my view, offers the most rewarding PvP environment in the genre. The two biggest flaws that WoW has are lack of reward, and lack of control.
Generally speaking, there is no reason to participate in PvP, aside from giggling at ganking some lowbie. While I do admit that there is an appeal to increasing machismo via online gaming, for the most part, it is less rewarding without some kind of tangible improvement to your character. The addition of the PvP items was a good move, but items don't generally modify your character that much. About the only real exception to this rule in the genre are the Artifacts in DAoC.
By comparison, DAoC offers abilities as rewards for participating in PvP, and these abilities are available from level 1 (assuming one can gain enough Realm Points to buy an ability). While there are some disadvantages to this system, the foremost being that you have to accumulate some amount of PvP experience before your character is "complete," it does give a feeling that there's more to the game than just griefing people. You have every reason to go to Thidranki and beat up on the other realms, instead of leveling. In a lot of cases, it improves your leveling (most casters can benefit from Mystic Crystal Lore, for example.)
On the subject of control, it's a sticky subject amongst the fan base. Most players do not like elements of control in their game. Anything which makes you incapable of doing anything for a while is generally perceived as a negative. However, few generally think about the flip side, and don't have to anymore, you can just look at WoW.
There is very little strategy involved in WoW conflicts, save solo, due to the fact that there is no control. Control is a necessary element to strategy, otherwise, it's simply a game of dealing and mitigating damage. This is doubly a concern in WoW, due to the fact that there is so little damage mitigation in the game, overall. As a caster, or other "soft" target, you're basically dead from the beginning of the fight. Your only hope is to output enough damage to make your death worthwhile.
The DAoC comparison is minimal, as there is a massive amount of control in the game, even three classes completely devoted to the concept, and all soft targets have some form of control they can use to increase survivability. While the concept of a dead caster walking still exists (ask your friendly neighborhood Sorcerer about how often he dies), there is, at least, a belief that you can do something to save yourself, and sometimes, the perception is enough to make things more palatable.
I think this is the biggest problem that WoW has. The PvE experience is rewarding and fun, as is required for any MMORPG, which makes it excellent for the casual player, but there is nothing to transfer those players into more competitive and devoted gamers. The casual gamer will move on as soon as something better comes along, though, to WoW's advantage, there's unlikely to be anything better for a while. The Grail here being Chess, the "easy to learn, difficult to master" concept. While I'm not meaning to infer that WoW is easy to master, the point is that there's very little beyond what you get in the first 10 levels of the game, there's just more of it.
The addition of a robust and rewarding PvP system would do well to make WoW a force to be reckoned with, but I don't see it happening. The MMORPG out there with the best chance to get everything right, at the moment, is City of Heroes, which should be introducing a more comprehensive PvP system in City of Villains, to go with their already sterling PvE experience.
As I've said before, I think WoW is okay, and it'll probably be a good game in a couple of years. When they add some more classes, vary what they have a bit, and provide some focus on PvP, the game will become much more enjoyable. Right now, it's simply a pleasant diversion from the remainder of the MMORPG's out there.
posted by Kindralas at 10:49 AM
2 comments
