The Gamer's Quarter

[J.Goodwin]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14757769/site/newsweek/

Yeah, screw you.
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Gamertag - FalcomAdol -- Don't Click Here 触手
Playing - Ninety-Nine Nights - Xbox 360

[ApM]

So, wait, is this fanfic?

[Shapermc]

[SuperWes]

[Wilkes]

it's a pretty piss article.

though, WoW is a pretty piss game.
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[xvs07]

Y'know, that says it all:

"Warcraft is the new golf," says Mayfield. "I actually closed a deal with a company I met through WOW."

Even if I had no other reasons, that quote alone would keep me from ever playing WoW.

And then there's this little gem:

"Ninety percent of what I do is never finished—parenting, teaching, doing the laundry," says Elizabeth Lawley (Level 60, Troll Priest), a Rochester, N.Y., college professor. "In WOW, I can cross things off a list—I've finished a quest, I've reached a new level."

Doesn't anyone knit, carve, or build cars anymore?

[dessgeega]

you can reach level 60 in world of warcraft but you can't finish doing the laundry?
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[Harveyjames]

Probably because of her heinous Warcraft addiction. Her life is a ruin.

[Dracko]

So, what's the new big thing in drone-in-drop-out escapism?
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[SuperWes]

Has anyone here actually played World of Warcraft? It's actually a really good game. Much, much better than FFXI could possibly ever become unless they added about three times the content. I played it for about a month because I wanted to know what the whole draw of MMORPGs are and the only real reason I don't still play it is that I'm unwilling to sacrafice the my entire leisure time for a single game. I did play it until I figured out how to do a majority of the stuff you can do, but there's a lot I didn't see. The carrots waved in front of my face to keep going sure were tempting, but in the end real life won out.

I realize that this is what a lot of people who don't play MMOs think, but it's a lot easier to understand why people devote themselves to it when you've had the experience yourself.

-Wes
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[DonMarco]

[Harveyjames]

[Shapermc]

I am waiting to throw my life away for Phantasy Star Universe!

Buy yeah, NWN hit me kind of hard, but I have told that story before.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[xvs07]

I'm thinking WoW would be pretty unpopular if it were text- and tick-based. It simply couldn't measure up to something like Achaea or even Materia Magica. When MMOs can meet that standard, then I might think about playing, but I'd still prefer to see something like a graphical FPS/MMO hybrid. Battlefield 2 sounds nice from all accounts, but it's not at all an immersive, persisent world like the MMOs boast. Even just losing the grind aspect of WoW in favor of straight playerkilling would be an improvement to me.

[simplicio]

Isn't that what Planetside was after?

[disneyland]

[Wilkes]

[Shapermc]

Like any other addictave substance it can be ok in moderation. It's the addiction, not the game, that most people look down upon. I have stated before that a friend of the family became addicted to WoW and it is not a fun thing to see happen. Hearing stories is one thing, but seeing it happen is another. I know there are thousands if not millions of people who don't have addiction problems with WoW and other MMO's.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[SuperWes]

[dhex]

i would agree, which is why i wouldn't come in and do my usual "calling things which aren't addictive in any physiological sense is a really bad idea, policy-wise, and only serves to enrich "addiction specialists" and other lackeys of the coming superstate" thing.
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[Shapermc]

I have what some people consider an "addictive personality" and try to stay away from things like such as MMO's. Aside from that I get really, really bored with them. The off hand chance that I may like one is terrifying.

Things can be addictive that aren't chemicals, they are just different kinds of addictions.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[simplicio]

not addicting, but certainly intentionally habit forming. And I don't blame Blizzard or anyone for it; I think it's just a human flaw (mentally and socially) that we're able to create things that can suck so many people in, so completely, on a purely mental level. Anyone besides dhex read PK Dick's "The Mold of Yancy"? Sometimes when I think about MMORPGs it doesn't seem so off-base.

[dhex]

[Nana Komatsu]

I refuse to play any MMO because for me, video games are a solitary experience first and foremost and I don't like being social.

[dhex]

i tend to agree, nana.

which raises an interesting point. why does talking about games that we play alone become a social activity?
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[Dracko]

For the same reasons talking about books or movies you've experienced alone is?
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[helicopterp]

I'll take a shot at this.

I think it's because each of us receives a game in a unique way. Moments stand out, atmosphere produces emotion, objectives induce thoughts. On the flip side, none of us experiences a game to the fullest of its potential, part of which potential is tapped with each and every different person who plays it. This creates a conceptual void that we try to fill, piecemeal, with each new player's view that we absorb. Looking at it this way, what we do here can be perceived as either hopeless or noble (which, when paired like this, become almost synonyms).

And the same for other genera (sp? gr?) of art blah blah blah.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[dhex]

specifically in the context of seeking out a solitary activity because of a lack of desire for socializing and then seeking out socializing contexts in which to discuss a solitary activity...which may just seem more interesting in my brain than it actually is.
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[helicopterp]

Yeah, when you put it that way it might be more of a one-liner than a theory. It's a pretty nifty one-liner, though.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[SuperWes]

[disneyland]

There are really nice moments in MMOs when everything is clicking. An experience no other genre can deliver. The feeling of completing a 2-hour dungeon in a great co-op group of 6 highly-skilled players is very satisfying, especially inside a nicely-designed private instance. Everyone working together, talking, planning each move. Everyone pushing their character to its highest potential, playing a role, acting as a piece of the puzzle, learning how others play their character class. Looking at other players to see how they've equipped and colored their characters. Finding out what part of Earth your group-mates are from. It can be a very intimate and compelling feeling to share your time with other gamers in this way.

[helicopterp]

You have inadvertantly managed to highlight what turns me off about WoW:

[TheRumblefish]

[Lackey]

It's unfortunate if you don't know anyone who plays the same games as you.

[SuperWes]

And here's another reason why people actually need to play the game before making early judgements. Disneyland likes WoW because of the player interactions, but the game works pretty well as a single player game also.

There's an article on Insert Credit about how Wow is designed as a single player game but has elements that arbitrarily require interactions with other players. It's a good argument against the game, and it's made by someone who very obviously has played the game enough to make it. But what it inadvertently states is that it's so close to a single player game that any argument against the whole online aspect is, for the most part, invalid.

If you're willing to go through a bit more effort to do so, it's possiible to play Wow by yourself for nearly the whole thing. There's this misconception that MMORPG games are just graphical MUDs, but that's not really the case. MUDs don't have anything at all if there aren't other people to play them with, while Wow has a shitload of quests that you can do by yourself as a single player. It's like Diablo or Oblivion, but the "leet armor" you get actually means something because there's someone there to see it and the economy is dictated by real people instead of AI.

So yeah, it's hard to take complaints about Wow from people who haven't played it very seriously because there's so much in there that, if you want to, you can avoid nearly any aspect you might not like. When I played Wow my character was a Troll Hunter named Picker who had a pet Tiger that fought with him. Every couple of hours Picker would stop and fish for a few minutes to get more food for his tiger before moving on. For those who haven't played the game, did you even know it was possible to get pets that fight with you?

-Wes
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[disneyland]

I enjoyed my wolf pet. She was dark grey. I tamed her at the edge of a forest.
Since I didn't fish or cook, I usually fed the wolf raw meat taken off animals we'd slain. That, or I'd purchase a stack of hams for the road. Your pets have a mood indicator. They like being fed and they like staying alive. Different species eat different food types. Pets stay with you and level up, can be given commands (passive, guard me, etc.) and can be resurrected. When they're in a bad mood they don't fight as well and get hurt more easily. I liked the wolf because they have the unique ability to howl in combat, enhancing your attack power (and also your allies, iif they're close enough to hear it). Different animals do different things. Giant turtle pets have big armor and can take a beating. Wild boars have a special charge attack. Gorillas have a nice stomp. Scorpions can poison. There's like twenty different animals and 100+ different appearances based on region, etc. They all have specialties and abilities to learn as they level up. They're nicely animated too, so it's easy to become attached.

I enjoyed the pet portion of that game. Deep enough to be a satisfying, on-going mini-game. You can also store pets in a stable (any town), in case you need the specialties of another. My wolf was well-rounded so I used her primarily. I had a nice black tiger as well which I tamed in a coastal jungle. Excellent run speed and camouflage abilities. Bit fragile though, that pussycat.

[Ketch]

[Lackey]

Urban Dead works like that. It's a web-game not on online RPG, I know.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[dessgeega]

so does kingdom of loathing, but unfortunately it's kingdom of loathing.
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