News Original From
You Aren't Cool Unless You Hate WOW
March 29th, 2009 by Ben
You aren't cool unless you hate WOW.
There, I said it. As a new contributor to the MMO blogosphere, what better way to ingratiate myself with the unwashed masses, than to get mad at WOW? I'm not good at jackass stunts. I'm not good looking. I can't get you into any cool betas.
So... /sigh, I hate you WOW. I hate people that play WOW, and the people who developed WOW and continue to work on it, and the people who pay the people who make WOW so that they can play WOW, and the people who defend WOW, and the people who live in Irvine, CA (where Blizzard's home office is located), and the people who go to Blizzcon, and the people who like WOTLK, and the people who hate WOTLK, and on and on and on. Can one person hate that much? I think so ... I even hate the (fairly) hot chicks who dress up in WOW gear! Beat that!
Blizzard... I fart in your general direction!!! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!!!
But more than anything... to be really cool, I have to hate WOW players who try another game and decide they don't like it. After all, that's the epitome of serious MMO internet fashion these days.
What are these morons thinking? Go back to lala-land, you stupid, silly WOW carebears! I mean, why would you want to play a game that looks great on practically anyone's PC? Why would you want to play a game with tons of community and mod support? Why would you want to play a game that had a great, fun treadmill system? Why would you want to play a game that offered more competitive PvP than nearly any other game at the time besides Guild Wars & DAOC? Why would you want to play a game with fun raid encounters? Why would you want to play a game that redefined the genre with innovative questing improvements, talent trees, and more?
Next thing you know, you'll all be doing stupid stuff like shoping at Ikea and Wal-Mart. OMG I HATE U WALMART SHOPPERS!
Listen... I'm not a huge fan of the diluted, boiled-down MMO that WOW became (or even started off as, I guess). But, I have really, really fond memories of WOW. I spent a lot of time having fun with the game, and with familes and friends that played it. I wouldn't touch WOW with a 10-foot pole today, but why hate on WOW just because other people are still finding ways to enjoy the game? In my opinion, it doesn't hold a torch to a sandbox game like EVE Online, which I'm currently digging into, but that doesn't mean I have to hate it.
In fact, I'm pretty damned glad that WOW exists, and that people are playing it.
True story for you. I have a brother IRL that's a pretty casual gamer, and guess what? He never wanted to play UO with me. He never wanted to play EQ with me. Shadowbane? Frak no. DAOC? Hah - no. Can I blame him? Not at all. The barrier to entry in all of those games was just too steep. Despite all of my best efforts to get him to plan an MMO, he never did. Not because he was too cool for it; back in school, we played games like Diplomacy, Warhammer Fantasy, Shadowrun, etc. We went to Gencon together. We spent a year being Magic: The Gathering nerds. We played EA sports games on the XBOX all the time. But MMOs? Newp.
Then, WOW came around, and he thought it would be worth trying. After all, how could a Blizzard game be bad!? He got hooked, and since then, we've played EVE, LOTRO, and WAR together. We currently have a blast kicking into WAR and running scenarios and ORvR. What changed? Like all of Blizzard's games, WOW was easy to understand and start playing, and after you got settled in, additional layers of complexity and challenge evolved to continue making it enjoyable. In fact, he enjoyed WOW from minute one, as opposed to other MMOs that made him immediately confused and frustrated.
Ultimately, my brother grew out of WOW, just like I did, but before he was an MMO gamer he was a WOW gamer. And after that, the much-dreaded, much-maligned WOW tourist. So hate on WOW and WOW tourists? I don't think so. I can't do it. WOW made an MMO gamer out of my little brother, and even though he sometimes begrudges it (we waste so much time online...!), we have a good time gaming together.
The morale of this story? If you think WOW killed the MMO genre with it's relentless pusuit of the casual gamer, think again. WOW is the reason that the MMO genre is as vibrant as it is. WOW gamers are this genre's lifeblood. They should be treasured, sought after, appreciated, and pursued... and guess what? They are. Any new MMO that wants to make money is going to appeal to that market.
So, don't hate the tourists who venture out. A lot of them won't like the non-WOW world, but a lot will, and let's face it - games like Darkfall are an acquired taste. A lot of people who love PvP don't even like that game. It isn't bad; it's just the MMO equivalent of lutevisk. No one in their right mind eats lutevisk, unless they grew up liking something that tasted so bad. I grew up on Ultima Online before UO even had a murder system, and really wanted to like Darkfall, but after getting a chance to eat the MMO equivalent of McDonald's for so long, I can't go back. I'd rather play WOW than Darkfall.
Looking forward, the last thing any of us should want is some set of tired, "purist" hardcore MMO rules that developers should follow. If that's what you want, look for a niche-game like Darkfall or EVE online, but realize that even your "hardcore" games will have more people playing them, because games like WOW introduced MMOs to a bigger audience.
After all, the M in MMORPG stands for massively. If a game like WOW gets more people playing games with us, that's a good thing, regardless of whether they're hardcore or not. Lonely MMOs don't tend to do well.
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