World Of Warcraft - The Apocalypse?
By sweep 4 Comments
I'm a WoW Player
I know, I know. I have been playing for about a year and a half but I took a year away from playing for a break, only to renew my account a coupl'a weeks ago. I have The Burning Crusade, but it was released while I was still only level 58 - and now I'm level 62. I still havent had a chance to experiance any of the Endgame 40 man raids or excitement which everyone says is so great, and is apparently the reason everyone gets to level 70 and then just sits there for months.So i'm kinda bummed that by the time I get to 70 there will shortly be another expansion pack - Wrath Of The Lich king - which moves the level cap a further 10 paces away to 80. All of a sudden there is a new rush to grind, new instances and information to catalogue, a surge of excitement. Or at least, thats the idea. I found it very intimmidating hopping back into a level 58 character after a year, with everyone assuming i knew exactly what I was supposed to be doing and offering little in the way of guidance or patience.
And with rumours of several other expansion packs being staggered over time, I may never actually reach the top of the ladder. Its kind of depressing consideing both the time and money that I have spent on that game that I will never reap the full set of rewards. After playing this month I doubt I am going to continue my subscription. The idea of Blizzard continually pushing me to spend more money and time to simply gain another ten levels and take me back (essentially) to square one is just... wrong. Because level 70 is the same as 60, but with more powerful gear and new instances and scenarios. For long-time players who needed a change of scenery that must be great. For the more casual gamer like myself - it sucks. I simpy cannot be bothered.
And then there is this desperate attempt by Blizzard to get players to recruit new gamers to world of warcraft. You invite a friend, you get ingame rewards. This seems a bit of a paradox to me - raising the level cap so significantly has warped the distance between new and old players is too much, and as a result the game has become incredibley hostile to new or returning gamers. Adding tripple experiance for recruiting players sounds like it is meant to speed up the level system but honestly I cant think of anyone wanting to do this. I cannot think of anyone in my group of close friends who wants to play world of warcraft. I know one guy who desperately wants to quit because people are taking the piss out of him at university. Life is hard.
The idea of "The Grind" is now obsolete, I want to hop into COD4 as a level 1 and still be able to fuck over a level 55 because I'm awesome with an AK47 and I dont need any flashy gadgets which I have spent months collecting. I dont want to be told "You need to grind 70 levels to experiance the latest and best content" and 6 months later "You need to grind another 10 levels so you can play the same stuff except more powerful". These expansion packs suck.
But I also appreciate that I am in the minority and that Blizzard has a duty to provide new content for the players who HAVE poured so much of their life into this computer game. So yeah, whatever.
Thats my rant about World Of Warcraft. Its a fucker, but its killing time thats on my hit-list and for that I'm satisfied. But these expansions seem to be designed to keep gamers playing wow FOREVER and that is not a commitment I am prepared to make. So for me, this is the Apocalypse, the end of the world (of warcraft).
Thanks for reading
Sweep