Tag Archives: video games

WoW and My Changing Attitude Toward MMOs

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Lately, I find my feelings about World of Warcraft are changing, and it’s giving me a different perspective on MMOs. Two things have led to this.

My warrior socializes in Lion's Arch during Guild Wars 2's Halloween eventThe first is taking a break and playing other games, particularly Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World. These games both have the gear grind treadmill that WoW does, but in both cases, it’s a much smaller part of the game, and they’re generally much more friendly to a casual play style.

The second is changes to WoW’s design in Mists of Pandaria, also catering to a more relaxed view of the game.

The backstory:

Over all the years I’ve played WoW, I’ve basically played it the same way. I’ve ground gear at endgame in the hopes of seeing some raid content. Yes, I avoided raiding guilds and the culture of “serious” raiders, but I still wanted the content and the story.

So I’d just keep trying to get more gear in the hopes it would increase my chances of getting into a successful PUG. It created this sort of low grade but constant anxiety about the game. Gotta keep up with the Johnsons.

My bloodbathed frostbrood vanquisher reenacts the Wrath of the Lich King load screenIn contrast, when I played other games, I didn’t have this, and in some ways, that made me enjoy them a lot more.

Then came the implementation of the Raid Finder in Cataclysm. This largely removed the need for me to participate in the gear grind. I still need to gear up to be able to queue for the Raid Finder, but that’s pretty easy, and once I do, I can pretty much do whatever I want — including not play at all.

It’s taken until now for me to fully realize this. It took trying other games to get me to grasp that I no longer need to stress about staying competitive.

The joy of indifference:

There’s also the fact that Mists of Pandaria is, by any standard, a very easy expansion, especially when compared to Cataclysm.

I don’t share the community’s intense hatred of Cataclysm, but there is one thing about it I really disliked, and I didn’t even realize it until I was free of it.

My paladin tries to find a way to pass the time during the Spine of Deathwing encounterCataclysm’s difficulty had a terrible effect on the community. The increased difficulty made it a case of survival of the fittest, and there was no room for the weak. It made elitists of even casuals like me.

I remember obsessively checking my Recount to make sure I was doing enough damage. I remember inspecting every tank at the beginning of each dungeon to make sure they weren’t scrubs. I remember kicking many, many nice people from my groups just because they couldn’t cut it as gamers.

I don’t have to play that way anymore. I haven’t even updated Recount since 5.1 launched — though I’m sure I will get around to it sooner or later.

The point is this: I no longer care, and that’s a good thing. The only goal I’m still pursuing with any seriousness is the Wrathion legendary chain, which has me regularly valor-capping for the first time ever. Otherwise, I can play however I want, without worrying about staying competitive.

My changing attitude:

My warlock completes the first stage of the Wrathion legendary chainThese changes to WoW mean I’m essentially “done” with the game much sooner than I would have been before — heck, before I was never done; it was an endless treadmill. Some people might think this a bad thing, but I don’t believe it is. It frees me to expand my gaming horizons.

I’m still playing WoW, but I’m also playing TSW and whatever else catches my fancy. I even played some Diablo III the other day for some strange reason. But I’m not enjoying WoW any less. In some ways, I might be enjoying it more.

Blizzard seems to be of the belief that more time playing their game equals more enjoyment for the player, but I believe this is a flawed theory. I think quality of gaming time matters more than quantity.

By not feeling like I need to log onto WoW every single day, I appreciate my time with it more. I never just log on and sit around thinking, “What am I gonna do?” I play because I really want to, not out of habit.

My warlock showing off her town clothes in the Vale of Eternal BlossomsIf I’m being fully honest, the fact I’m no longer as enamored with WoW’s mechanics as I once was is also a factor. This is the result of playing other games, which I found much more enjoyable from a strict gameplay perspective. As I’ve said, WoW does feel a little archaic these days.

I could never give it up. I care too much about the world and the characters, and Mists of Pandaria is doing a very good job of rekindling that feeling. But it does leave me wanting more from a gameplay perspective.

As an aside, this is a great lesson on the importance of creating good lore and an engaging world. I like the game mechanics of Guild Wars 2 much more than those of WoW, but I’m playing WoW more.

I’m also working on lowering my expectations for what WoW is capable of, which I realize were unreasonably high. My love for Warcraft III and the years where I wanted to play WoW but couldn’t led me to put the game on a pedestal. I think I’ll enjoy it more if I accept it for what it is, rather than expecting it to be the gaming messiah.

How I became a game-hopper:

A Jinn in The Secret WorldThere seems to be a general perception among the MMO community that obsessing over one game is the right way to do things. “Game-hopper” is a term often spoken with a hint of derision, and the general feeling is that playing an MMO is like being in a committed relationship. I’ve even dubbed my series of coverage on other games “Cheating on WoW.”

(Expect at least one more installment of this series in the near future, by the way.)

But I’m starting to think this is a very flawed way of thinking. It makes sense for single player games, where focus on one and burn through it quickly before moving on to another.

But MMOs are a different beast. You never really finish them, and if you try to play one forever, you will eventually burn out. The truth is that there is no developer on Earth who can produce content faster than players can get sick of it.

Nor can one MMO satisfy all gaming desires, though some do an admirable job of trying. If you try to play one MMO exclusively, you’ll eventually get bored and want to try something else.

The Secret World's introductory mission in the Tokyo subwayI’ve come to the conclusion MMOs shouldn’t be thought of as an exclusive relationship. I’m thinking of them more as television shows.

I like Glee (less so since Quinn left, but I digress), but that doesn’t mean I want it to be the only show I ever watch. I also like to watch The Simpsons, The Daily Show, and the news. Similarly, I like WoW, but I also like TSW, and GW2, and so forth.

This is part of why I’ve come to disdain the subscription business model so much. It’s not practical for most people to maintain several subs at once. Part of me wonders if I can even justify paying for WoW when I’m not playing as compulsively as I used to.

I’m not saying my way is the only way. If you enjoy sticking with a single game to the exclusion of all others, that’s cool. But I will go out on a limb and say that “game-hopping” is probably the wave of the future for most players.

Horde paratroopers attacking in the "A Little Patience" scenarioI suspect this is a large contributor to the growing popularity of subscription-free games. Again, the “free to not play” argument.

What about you? Do you practice MMOnogamy, or do you prefer to sample from the buffet of gaming? Share your thoughts.

Edit: Apparently, this is my 200th post. Yay?

Am I a Bad MMO Player?

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It’s time to be honest about something: I’m not social in MMOs. I’m not an outgoing person by nature, and most of my experiences with other people in MMOs (and across the Internet, for that matter) have been negative. So I was never very social in these games to begin with, and I’m getting less so all the time.

A winter zone in AionI like the concept of massively social games with hundreds of players interacting. I’ve done much harping on how MMOs don’t do enough to support this kind of environment. But while I like the concept in theory, it doesn’t mesh well with my personality.

I do not belong to any guilds or cabals in Guild Wars 2 or The Secret World. I’ve spent the vast majority of my time in World of Warcraft in just two guilds (one for each faction), and I essentially fell into both by accident. Time has taken its toll on both guilds, as well, and I now have only a handful of fellow WoW players I still speak to in-game.

I’ve said before that I basically intend to play TSW as a single player game, but now it occurs to me that I’m basically playing all my MMOs that way. I’ve decided that I simply don’t want to bother with group content — discounting ones that can be easily accessed by soloists, such as WoW’s Raid Finder — because I’ve just never enjoyed it.

That begs a couple of questions, though.

Why am I playing MMOs?

The Gates of Arah in Cursed Shore in Guild Wars 2I’ve gotten pretty heavily into MMOs. I’ve played several (I’m juggling two or three right now), and writing about them has become a cornerstone of my career. Why would this happen when I don’t appreciate one of the core purposes of an MMO?

The main answer is happenstance. I am a hardcore Warcraft fan and always have been. This meant I had to play WoW to keep getting my Azeroth fix.

And then it just kind of dovetailed from there. I started hearing about WoW-killers and got curious about whether other MMOs really could be that miraculously perfect. Spoiler alert: The answer is no. But I did find some games that were pretty damn good.

Of course, now I’m attached to the MMOs I play, and I couldn’t give them up.

There is another factor I’ve heard other MMO soloists offer to justify their habits. I’m hesitant to bring it up, because people usually get laughed out the door when they bring it up — and perhaps rightfully so.

My warlock in Deatholme, early in her life.Basically, the idea is that there’s more to appeal to people about MMOs than the social aspect. Which is of course true, but most people wouldn’t agree that they’re enough on their own.

The main appeals MMOs have over single player games other than the social aspect are persistent worlds and endless content updates. Certainly, I couldn’t play a single player game for years on end like I have with WoW.

The persistent world is what really appeals to me, though. I’ve always loved immersing myself in fictional worlds — be they in video games, books, or my own imagination — and MMOs let me do that much more so than single player games.

And, of course, there is the trump card: I’m paying them $15 a month. I can do whatever the flying frack I want with their game short of violating the terms of use.

But that brings us to the next question.

Are players like me bad for MMOs?

The ruins near Traders' Berth in AionI don’t know how many soloist MMO players are out there. I haven’t encountered very many, but that’s probably to be expected considering our habits. I’ve heard some people claim they’re spreading like wildfire across the world of MMOs, but I don’t know if I quite buy that, either.

There is a perception, though, that MMOs are skewing towards solo play both in terms of developer actions and player desires. Look at all the solo content in Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, and Star Wars: The Old Republic.

The consensus seems to be that this is a very bad thing. People complain that us soloists are ruining MMOs, and that the true MMO experience is slowly dying off.

While my natural instinct is to defend my habits from such criticisms, I’m not sure I can. I do believe in the ideal of social gaming MMOs offer, even if I don’t participate in it, and it would seem a shame for it to slowly die off to a plague of us anti-social gamers.

I can’t answer this question myself, so I would welcome comments. Is there a place for the soloist in the MMO world, or are we just dragging the genre down?

The haunted insane asylum in The Secret WorldIt does occur to me that it depends on how we define socializing in MMOs, as well. Do you need to actually be playing alongside people, or is just chatting with them while you do separate things valid? Do you need to actually form lasting friendships, or is just randomly chatting with a PUG acceptable?

The latter is something I have done often, though less so these days as I gradually lose faith in MMO communities.

I’ve even heard some people argue it can be a meaningful interaction even if players don’t talk at all, that there’s still value in silent PUGs and quiet cooperation in the open world. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I see the logic.

Mind you, I’m not going to stop playing my MMOs even if I come to the conclusion players like me are bad for MMOs. You’ll take my Secret World from me when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

My rogue stabbing things on the Molten FrontBut I like to understand things. The MMO phenomenon is something that fascinates me, and I would like to understand what effect anti-social players like me have on the genre.

So I must ask for your opinions: Are players like me bad for MMOs?