Fran: Yes, you left the iron on.
Julie: What?
Fran: Your thousand mile stare – its either combat fatigue or something’s on your mind.
Julie: I think Rob Pardo is trying to steal my soul.
Fran: Pardon?
Julie: It’s the only explanation.
Fran: For what?
Julie: I’m going to start playing wow…
Fran: Again?
Julie: Again.
Fran: And this from the woman who would rather drill her own teeth than play WoW? The same woman who, instead of playing WoW, once said she would rather crawl to and from work over broken glass and hot coals, uphill both ways?
Julie: Both ways…yep
Fran: What about free to plays like Allods?
Julie: Cash shop too expensive.
Fran: Age of Conan?
Julie: Frame rate too low.
Fran: Everquest? Warhammer?
Julie: You could set off a Claymore mine in the middle of the guild and not hit anyone.
Fran: Aion still too grindy?
Julie: Like a mill stone the size of Texas…and yes I know about perceived leveling speed – that’s how I perceive it.
Fran: Lord of the Rings Online, Star Trek Online? Hit the level cap?
Julie: Like a brick wall.
Fran: I don’t have to ask about Eve Online – your love/hate relationship swings back and forth like a metronome on speed.
Julie: Tyrannis – not until June 8th.
Fran: Guild wars? Dungeon and Dragons Online? Global Agenda? Final Fantasy? Lineage? What about Fallen Earth?
Julie: Nope
Fran: None of them? Didn’t you just get done telling me you would rather remove your own appendix with a rusty spoon than go back to WoW?
Julie: Yep.
Fran: Know what I think?
Julie: What?
Fran: Rob Pardo is in league with the devil.
Rob Pardo?
But why Rob Pardo, you might ask? Why not Bobby Kotick – someone whose public persona makes him a more likely candidate to actually be in league with the prince of darkness?
The reason “why Rob Pardo” is because he led the team that designed World of Warcraft (WoW). In 2006 Time Magazine named him as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. At the 2007 Blizcon, Michael Michael Morhaime, co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment, described him this way in the opening speech:
“Because of your support, World of Warcraft has quickly grown to be the most popular on line game in the world. Since we were last together in Blizzcon ’05 the global population of World of Warcraft has actually doubled. There are now more than 9 million residents of Azeroth – that is bigger than half of the countries in the world.” – Michael Morhaime
Obviously we here at No Prisoners, No Mercy (NPNM) are not really inferring an association between anyone at Blizzard and the infernal legions. Still, despite the many times I have held a cursor hovering over the delete character button I am still paying a parking fee of $15.00 per month for not playing WoW – and I am certainly not alone.
Why WoW?
What is the Siren’s call that pulls so many to WoW? I have heard many reasons why. When Paul Barnett was on the NPNM Show he claimed that WoW was simply a fluke – in the right place at the right time. Someone in the Virgin Worlds Collective, who shall remain nameless (simply because I can’t remember who it was), argued that Wow “isn’t a great mmo, it’s a great game” (I am still trying to figure out what that means). Brad McQuaid tried to crush WoW back in his Sigil Games days. Mark Jacobs (former Mythic General Manager) argued about virtual tourists from WoW in the early days of War. The general chat channels of just about any mmo I have every played has trolls lurking about alternately singing praises or their hatred for WoW like some lovelorn or jilted lover. And the term “WoW clone” has been uttered so often I believe a large portion of the gaming populous has it tattooed on their forehead in reverse so they have to read it each morning.
We can debate the question “Why” until the mountain really does come to Mohammed and we are likely to have as many answers as WoW has subscribers – and that is more than the population of half the world’s countries.
My reason?
WoW is McDonalds.
Think about it.
I have been to McDonalds all over the world and I always know what to expect. The famous “Scottish” food may not be the best, and certainly not the healthiest, to ever cross a dinner table. It may not be elegant, but it is palatable and always consistent.
And WoW is the same way.
We all expect an MMO to launch on a sea with at least a few ripples in it. Yet how many times have we seen a game reach the one year mark and still have more bugs than an “Orkin Man” sees in a year? Whether it’s to try and lure back wayward customers, squeeze more money out of the game, or inadvertently throw good money after bad we even see developers/publishers release expansions when the basic game is still not stable.
Yet whether it’s an expansion for WoW or Star Craft II you won’t find a DRM (digital rights management) that looks like a policy that was issued by a prison system. It may look like it was drawn by Disney instead of DaVinci, but the game always runs as smooth as a puppies bare behind, even with a video card that is beneath the latest generation of Nvidia graphic cards.
So in the end, Rob Pardo certainly isn’t likely to be in league with the devil, but he just may be in league with McDonalds.
See you online,
Julie Whitefeather
Post by The Webmaster for Julie Whitefeather
I know it’s popular to compare WoW with McDonald’s but I think a better comparison is Elvis.
When Elvis sprang to the attention of popular culture it utterly transformed rock music. Of course the old time MUD players insisted it was nothing new, that old black guys had been playing those tunes in smoky bars for decades. The lovers of classical MMOs insisted it wasn’t really music, just trash for the culturally naive. And everyone accused Elvis the Pelvis of immoral techniques like instancing and soloability.
In 50 years time people will look back at McDonalds and think why was that ever popular. But they’ll look back at WoW and think that was truly great.
I see a show topic here. Not one sitting around extolling the virtues of WOW but different perspectives of why people have either continued to play or consistently come back. I’m tired of WOW but when all else fails there’s a certain level range that is absolutely fun for me to achieve over and over and over. Combined with all the high level characters I have available to help bolster throw away alts, you can do the ride in style.
There are several memorable encounters and instances very early WOW leveling curve that I haven’t encounter in many other games. I think that is part of the appeal too. I want to kill Princess and Hogger, I want to stroll around Stormwind, I want to do Deadmines, quest in Westfall, cherry pick my favorite quest-lines in Duskwood and kick Orc ass in Lakeshire. After that it becomes less and less appealing to repeat until… Pirates in STV – yar and more pirates in Tanaris. After that I’m asleep at the wheel until…uh…done. LOL
I say, let’s discuss. hehe
P.S. Scarlet Monastery is da bomb instance for being only mid-way through a game. And then there’s Stocks which I don’t mind doing.
@ Stabs: Now if you had said Duke Ellington or Count Bassie maybe. But I still think McDonalds is more appropriate. Wow is not necessarily a “classic” but it is always dependable.
@ Saylah: Sounds like a great idea to me. Let me run it by Fran and see what she says. Have anyone in particular in mind as a guest? *wink*
WoW maintains a parking fee from me as well. I find myself going back to play mainly with co-workers who talk about the game all day long at work. It’s a form of social extortion combined with peer pressure. I should be too old for those kind of influences.
WoW is kinda like that guy down the street, on the corner, wearing that heavy coat in the summer time evenings – palming exchanges with passing cars and passing on addictions at $14.95 a pop.
You’ve seen that guy.
Existing investment in characters is another consistent draw. I think WOW had the best leveling game of all time in the MMO space. This means the average player has lots of characters with gear, gold, comps, etc., making it easier to go back for a quick ride or as RW says, pay the parking fee.
I recently called Blizzard support to see if they would combine our 5 accounts into one monster Battlenet account, which the kindly did for me. That one account now represents thousands of hours invested and thousands of real world dollars, turning it into something I’m not likely to ever chuck forever. I went ahead to activated the game guard to protect such a large gaming investment.
WOW is easy to go back to and even now you can roll up new characters and find the go-to starter zone for each faction absolutely populated with players.
Our household has two accounts. One active and one on parking fee (until last night). I will admit that it was an internal struggle to log on. Part of the problem for me remains that while I am now a hordie from way back there was a time I never dare set foot on the horde side…and I still have characters I enjoy from those days. However the TOG WoW guilds are active on the Horde side but (at least last time I was on the alliance side) not active at all (the guild not the WoW faction).
So my gnome warrior I loved to play languishes at level 47, my night elf druid at level 36 and my gnome warlock at level 34…waiting for the day that I can find an active Alliance side group.
Julie
@Saylah Now, that was really cool of them to do.
@RW – Yes, it was. I know they must have chuckled after the call. I explained that I’d gotten to the point where managing the accounts – knowing which to re-sub to activate particular characters, meant having a PowerPoint file with each account having it’s own slide showing log-in name, password, servers with chars and chars on each server that were 50+ in level. It was a part-time bookkeeping job to keep it all straight. And every few months, I’d have to log-in and cycle thru the servers using one of the paid services options (without actually committing a change) just to see who was where and take the screen shots again or make text notations of changes. yeah – crazy right??