Blogcraft

MMORPG - Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game A.K.A The dreaded Time Sponge A.K.A Where did the last few years of your life go?

Notable games:

World of Warcraft

E.V.E Online

War-hammer

Conan

DC Universe Online

Also expect:

Star Wars: The Old republic

Now, take a good long look at these 6 games, and pay significant attention to the top game.  Combined, these games have taken a few hundred lifetimes of hours away from gamers.  And they've only been out a decade?  Made by companies who claim that they want to make an experience where everyone can enjoy each others company while exploring a rich game world.

As well as that might be, there is a small print.  They want your soul in exchange.

Yes, buy these games and play with hundreds of random people you've never met before.  Collect items, become the ultimate 'fuck you' bad ass among another hundred thousand 'fuck you' bad asses  Blend in seamlessly with hundreds of other people who think the burden of real life is too much to take.  Bond over the fact that the opposite sex is over rated and that your guild mates are the only friendship you ever need.  For anyone that said 'well there's a member of the opposite sex in my guild' then well done you, you must tell me how the cyber sex works out.  All the developer and publisher want in exchange is for you to dedicate enough hours of your life to the game to justify paying £10 a month for the rest of your sodding life.

Now, obviously I sound very much against the notion of MMORPGs, and I'm not.  To dislike an entire genre when I've never really experienced it is the same kind of hypocrisy that I've been winging about over the last 8 or so blogs.  But that doesn't mean I can't formulate my own opinion regarding it, from what I've seen.  And what I've seen baffles my incredible mind.  INCREDIBLE MIND!

Now, I'm going to concentrate my attention on the grand daddy, apparently the greatest MMORPG and apparently apparently one of the best games to ever exist in the history of ever.  It's also one of the most influential, but to argue against that is like arguing that the Chinese don't live in China.

So yes, World of Warcraft is one of the, if not the most influential game out today.  Why?  Because it makes a lot of bloody money.  And when a game makes a lot of bloody money, a lot of big publishers go 'ooh, I want to make a lot of bloody money too!'.  But why does it make a lot of bloody money?

I don't think I could tell you, because I am but one side to the 3 massive armies.  From the mountains of Azeroth live the World of Warcraft faithful.  The people I specified not 4 paragraphs ago.  Down on the plains of Earth are the people who look up at them thinking 'what the fuck are they all doing up there?'.  This is me and any other person who has never touched World of Warcraft before.  We're the brand of gamers who don't understand the appeal of being called 'n00b' on a regular basis, or don't like going on irritating fetch quests, or don't like the idea of paying a tenner a month for a game we've already bought.

Guess you can call us old fashioned

And the third party, are the people who come down from the mountain.  The recovering addicts, fresh from their Warcraft anonymous meetings, pledging never to take their Cow-man out to raid ever again.  But on lonely nights he shakes, staring at his PC and swears it's talking to him.

PC:  Come Averein!  Play World of Warcraft.  The new expansion pack has just been released.  Things are different.
Averein:  No! My name is Robert! Averein is dead! He's dead you hear me!?

PC:  He can live again.  He just needs you.  The power of your love (and money) will heal his spirit

And so on, and so on.

Now, the most constructive thing to do would be to have an opinion from all 3 sides.  But fuck that, you came here to hear me, and me alone, so that's what you're going to get!  The fact is I know people who play World of Warcraft, and I listen to pod casts starring people who play World of Warcraft.  The best outside opinion you're going to get is this tiny tale about my friend, who vowed to never get into World of Warcraft ever again.  Instead he chose to speak fondly of the mass time he spent on it.  I guess you would consider him the recovering addict.

Well I would too until he bought the recent expansion pack, Cataclysm, and has probably already clocked a few hundred million hours on it.

And there it is.

World of Warcraft makes so much money because it has a power equatable to alcohol, cigarettes and drugs. It's addictive, to an unhealthy degree.  Blizzard is the gaming equivilant of Marlboro cigarettes, charging their customers regularly to sap their lives away.  It's a harsh comparison but one that needs to be made.  If the game relied more on seamless storytelling instead of grind quests (again, I'm speaking from what I've heard) then I wouldn't have room to complain.  A game praised for length should therefore be judged for how much content it offers.  Padding doesn't count.

Before any World of Warcraft leader goes into a frenzy of either hate, denial or masturbation.  I want to clarify one more thing.  I know for a fact that were I to climb the mountain of Azeroth, I wouldn't come back down for a good long while.  And if I ever did, I would be resemble someone who has been on Crystal Meth for twenty years.  So don't think that I write this blog as a means to look down upon any of you, because chances are I'm secretly worse than all of you put together.

I'd still be smoking hot though.