WoW continues to amaze

It’s crazy how much people play that game. People who do not normally play games like it, and some people give up their lives for it. I played it for a week and got bored.

I have tried WoW myself, however the favourite things about IRE games for me were always the combat, politics and RP. PvP does exist in World of Warcraft but is rather shallow (for obvious technical and audience-based reasons) in comparison. Politics simply don’t exist. RP… well, I always played on “RP” servers, but it was pretty rare that I saw anyone even trying to maintain being IC, never mind actually roleplaying.

Nevertheless, there are many good things about WoW, and it is surprisingly innovative for its field, particularly in balancing casual and hardcore gamers. I shudder to think how much they would make if they used a pay-for-perks model (maybe even in addition to subscription, they might be able to get away with it!).

Oh, for sure they could. An informal study I saw estimated that 1 in 3 WoW players already pays money for in-game gold/items/powerleveling. Imagine how that figure would change if you could buy stuff directly from Blizzard instead of from some random guy in China.

PvP in the game is incredibly shallow though. What it comes down to almost every time is rock/paper/scissors. If you’re a mage ‘paper’ fighting a warrior ‘rock’ you’ll win every time, until a hunter ’scissors’ comes along. The game as a whole is pretty shallow anyway. All it boils down to is how much time you are willing to spend grinding away just to earn the next shiny trinket that will allow you to grind somewhere else so you can spend more time grinding for the next shiny trinket.

Okay, I just have to disagree with you on the PvP part blachawk. I personally love the PvP in WoW, and find that every class is evenly balanced. The only correct comment about the PvP you made is that the hunter kills the mage (about 66% of the time), but a mage and a warrior at the same level with similair equipment would have a very even fight. Did you forget that there’s more than just those three classes, or are you getting confused with RuneScape’s pathetic attempt at PvP? Don’t mean to rant but I had to get that out there.

“I personally love the PvP in WoW, and find that every class is evenly balanced. The only correct comment about the PvP you made is that the hunter kills the mage (about 66% of the time),”

Do you see the contradiction in that statement? They didn’t balance classes based on the idea that every class should have an equal chance to kill every other class. They balanced it by giving class xx the ability to beat class yy, zz the ability to beat xx, and yy the abilty to beat zz.

I could give a blow by blow report on why a mage should win against a warrior every time, but that would turn into an essay quickly. The bottom line is that a mage has the Blizzard-granted tools to keep a warrior well out of melee range. Sure the warrior has intercept, but a simple mana shield and/or ice shield will shut him down for the little bit of time intercept bought him. Cold Snap + Ice Block + Frost Nova + Cone of Cold + Blink + Frostbolt are more than enough to keep the warrior at bay while you cast on him. Sure, if you just stand still and cast, the warrior will probably beat you.

Just as a mage can kite a warrior, so can a hunter kite a mage. In addition, even though the hunter has lower overall dps than the mage, the mage’s hitpoint total tend to be so pathetic that a hunter can usually just stand toe to toe and still win.

That’s about as deep into the specifics as I’m willing to go here.

Yes, I am aware there are more than three classes in the game. I was merely using the mage/warrior/hunter as an example because that is in my opinion the most blatant example of WoW’s poor pvp design.

The most interesting thing about WoW is probably that the number of game designers and bloggers who have any respect for it (as a game, not as a commercial success) can be counted on one hand. Virtually without fail the current crop of People Who Have Opinions About Games find WoW to be almost offensive in its simplicity.

I think Blizzard brilliantly capitalized on this fact; many MMO’s out there are less appealing to mainstream audiences than they could be simply because they are designed by people who refuse to fully believe players are this shallow.

Of course, after 15 years of sticking to text, and finding graphical MMO’s pretty trite, I’ve become a fervent WoW player, so my opinion probably doesn’t count.