Archive for May, 2008
Friday, May 30th, 2008
Friday in LA
I have been given 550,000 humans to play with. Hopefully I can channel their efforts into something glorious and productive. More to come soon!
Wednesday, May 21st, 2008
VMK Gone Away
I keep rewriting this post, and I keep failing at it.
I want to tell you about VMK’s closing. I want to tell you about the dark lessons watching a community die can teach. I want to tell you about Madison Reed. Maybe next week.
Sunday, May 4th, 2008
Why I Don’t Play WoW
The reason I do not play World of Warcraft is because as a game, it is too good. Yes, I played from levels 1-60, and I experienced end-game raiding content well before Burning Crusade. I was lucky enough to have exhausted much of the content available before Blizzard dumped a heaping helping back on top, and used the momentum from my raid misfortunes to build up enough escape velocity.
I’ve escaped from World of Warcraft, and I’m proud to say that I have. But I don’t damn the game or the players who play it. For me, the world of Azeroth presents too much opportunity for fun to stand in direct competition with “RL”. The problem, if it can be seen as a problem, is that as a game it is too well done. There is so much content to go through, with such a rich, consistent history. The game itself feels easy, dangling well-deserved carrots at frequencies seemingly tailor made to the player.
I’m not going to call WoW the perfect MMO. It falls short in several areas. First off, there is no player housing. Player housing provides a sense of permanance and ownership that simply doesn’t exist in most games outside of Ultima Online. There are no live events. Nothing on a WoW server is ever going to be truly “surprising” or unique in that it happens out of the ordinary. Thirdly, endgame remains GearCraft, which perhaps is the only extant solution to the design problem of endgame on a level treadmill. You will have inflation, you will have farming, you will have economic stratification.
And it is a level treadmill. Don’t convince yourself otherwise. It is a cleverly designed, beautifully tweaked level treadmill obfuscated deeply by mounds and mounds of gooey sugary content. Level 14 to 15? Not without going to this new land and exploring wonderful new things and meeting all these awesome new NPCs and abilities! Nom nom nom.
When I went to interview for the spot of Blizz CM, they asked me if I still played, and I embarrassingly had to say no - and tried to explain to the best of my ability why. They handed me a copy of Burning Crusade, fresh off the presses, and it still sits, unopened, on the shelf in the closet of my home office. Sometimes, late at night, when I glance over the four or five rows of game icons on my desktop, the box seems to call to me. “Play me. I could give you untold hours of satisfaction.” it seems to say. And it would, and I know exactly how it would feel and what to expect if I cracked that box open.
It would consume every spare moment, every moment not dedicated to something specific, something Other. “Other” itself would be WoW, and all conversations like roads would lead back to WoW. The dulcid hypnotic music of the swirling opening gate of login screen would welcome me time and time again, until a very part of my psyche and soul were claimed by the World of Warcraft. I would find myself engaged in the evil math, the DARK MATH that I have spoken before of to friends and relatives when afflicted with the powers of World of Warcraft. You know this math of which I speak. You’ve done it yourself if you’ve played.
/played. Oh, I spent that much time in this game. I see. Well, let’s see, that’s 8 months, times subscription fee, plus original box purchase. Divided by how many hours I’ve played. So that’s X cents per hour played, enjoying a wonderful game. If I were out at the movies or having drinks with friends, it would be a lot more expensive. A night out on the town can run upwards of fifty, sixty dollars. And look at all the fun I’m having staying right here at home. It’s a smart decision, it really is. It really is.
Dark Math. Justification and truth used to reinforce what is undoubtedly an addiction. And anyone that says they aren’t addicted to WoW is pulling your leg. It’s an addictable MMO. I would go so far as to say that it is the most addictive MMO. Watch the eyes in a “casual” player when they hear that login music. They freaking dilate, as though the person were physiologically getting ready for food or sex!
I don’t play WoW because it would eat me. I was actually in the beta test, and I learned how good of a game it was then, and outright refused to buy it when it came out because I knew matter-of-factly that it would consume me cowlick to toenail. If, at some point, Blizzard decides to release a redux version, with less content, maybe more PvP, and certainly less satisfying gameplay, I will gladly consider giving it another go.