What's RIGHT With WoW

Opinion from Matt - Tuesday, 04 January 2011 @ 9:11pm

Readers of my long running series of What's Wrong With WoW often comment with the obvious question, and one that I have so far not bothered answering. So then... why do I play?

And the reason I didn't respond to it was because I was planning to do so here. The fact is 12 to 15 million players can't all be stupid. World of Warcraft is the world's most popular game for PC, and in a sense has a community and a presence not unlike the entire rest of the the PC gaming market combined. In a very real sense, wow players often choose not between wow and another game, but between wow and all other games. And they do so for varied reasons.

Wow is old, but it still looks good. Ok, relatively speaking, not objectively. Unlike other claimants to the throne and “wow-killers” world of warcraft eschewed a strictly accurate respresentation of its world and was more stylised. This has meant it's dated better than it really deserves for a five and a bit year old game. Occasional graphical updates such as revisions of the water engine have helped delay the inevitable, and the recent Cataclysm expansion allowed the developers to give the oldest of the world a graphical and gameplay once-over.

Regardless, parts of Azeroth and the connected Outlandslook surprisingly good. Vast landscapes, crystal trees, massive city gates. The first time I saw Ironforge I was impressed, and I still regularly see new places and environments that impress by their scope, their artistry or their details.

Not everyone likes the actual gameplay of this game. There is a quite a reasonable resistance to the gameplay that consists almost entirely of quests that require the player to collect or kill large numbers of a particular enemy or item. Of course there's more to it than that, but this concept creates the bulk of quests in World of Warcraft. I'm unsure how I feel about this myself. In a sense it really is work. It's something you have to get through, something you have to complete. A right of passage? Dinner before dessert? I'm not sure. All I know is that there's a reason to play. Personally I like questing. I enjoy running arount, collecting stuff, getting money, getting a bit more new gear, etc. I don't know why, I just find it fun. Time consuming, yes, but fun.

And I'm not alone. Not everyone playing WoW and not everyone who has played has raced to end-game raiding. Many players have enjoyed levelling multiple characters, not just to provide greater endgame utility for their guild or whatever, but because they... want to.

WoW now incorporates a pretty varied range of play styles and play options too. There are multiple things to do and some appeal more to some people than others, but the combination means that there are a range of options for a few hours play. Many players find collecting materials and crafting objects an enjoyable way to spend time. Others work the Auction House, amassing huge fortunes. Others play purely for PvP, killing other players either in specific arenas or in the game world. Some play to complete the (kind of) recent achievements, running old content and trying odd things in current dungeons to check off these tasks. Almost all play to raid, running 10 or 25 man groups through challenging encounters that require teamwork. Mostly people play a variety of these things, trading on the Auction House to finance raiding, PvP and working for achievements purely for fun, and so on.

The new Guild achievements and levelling system is a good example of this, adding a sense of accomplishment and progress to even the act of being part of a guild.

Blizzard have put a lot of time and effort into making these aspects of the game fun, and improved them over time. World of Warcraft's development has never been completed, it's ongoing, whether it's new content, new features, bug fixes or balance improvements there has been continued effort to making sure the most players have the most fun. Sure it's self serving, happy customers are paying customers. But that doesn't change things. They're still putting in the effort.

In doing so they've created a compelling world, a compelling game. Sometimes too compelling. World of Warcraft is the victim of its own success at times. People criticise it for being addictive. People say it's a life ruiner, family destroyer, home wrecker. That it's Warcrack. Anecdotes abound of people who played to their detriment, lost jobs, friends or family.

Warcraft's fault? The same accusations have been made about Facebook. Or... heroin. Oh well. Anyway, the point is that like actual crack, warcrack is popular because it's fun. People enjoy it. They like playing. And many of them have consistently liked playing the same game for more than five years. I know I have. I've heard people talk about what you could have done in the time you've played. It's true, but only in as far as it goes. This is your leisure time we're talking about. You probably weren't planning to use it to campaign for peace in the middle east. Sure, that's theoretically enough time to have learned Mandarin, or mastered the banjo, but were you actually going to do that? Or would you have only been watching old episodes of Masterchef?

World of Warcraft's greatest asset is not what people often thing it is. It's not the resources dedicated to its expansion. It's the people who play it. And they're not all assholes or elitist jerks. After playing a while and levelling you find that you slowly encounter and get to know like minded people. You play more with them. You join a guild and level with them. You raid with them. You start to know them as people, rather than characters, their lives instead of their spec.

What Blizzard has done so successfully is made the World of Warcraft a social experience. It's not the game itself that's so compelling, it's sharing the gameplay with friends. And they ARE or can be friends. Some of my best friends in the real world are people I originally met through WoW. And the same happens in reverse. A number of my friends from the Australian Gamer forum community or locals to the ManaBar now play as well.

I've enjoyed specific experiences in World of Warcraft. The first time I joined a couple in a group, questing through Duskwood that later became my guild leaders and good friends. The first time I did an instance, with the same people among others. It was the first of many runs through Zul'Furrak. It's worth pointing out that the reason the run was hastily arranged was that I didn't really “get” World of Warcraft at that point. I had never used the Auction House. Ever. I didn't know it was there. I got to 45 or so without ever doing an instance, or using the Auction House. How did I get gear you may ask? Well, some of it was quest rewards. The rest was bought from vendors. Yes, I levelled to close to the endgame cap in mostly WHITE gear. Hey, that's what you do in other RPGs, right? I remember well playing with the guild during 40 mans. We'd done a lot of Molten Core and were starting Blackwing Lair. And we were stuck. For ages. Months. It took several days a week, over several months, just to get through Razorgore. But eventually we won. It was an epic run with almost everyone dead, and a tight battle right to the end. I remember well the thrill of getting through it, the exultation.

Blowing Piccolo of the Flaming Flute at the start of a ZG run.

I remember starting Naxx in Wrath with a new guild, all Australian Gamer people or friends. I remember the epic levels of failure we went through, with some damage dealers pulling under 3000dps and us struggling through every fight, undergeared and inexperienced. And then a short time later running the same raid with room for insane pissfarting around. Deliberately pulling multiple groups, aggroing the boss without warning. Once my Paladin Off-tank thought it would be funny to DI me while I was tanking. Everyone died. He was right. It was pretty damn funny. CURSE YOU, KALITHRAX.

This could turn into a soppy love letter to World of Warcraft without too much prompting, but I just wanted to conclude with something. World of Warcraft has been something I enjoyed over the past few years, but it's been something I have enjoyed without regret because I have managed it.

World of Warcraft can be an enjoyable experience if you follow some simple rules. These rules should possibly follow for all games, but none more than WoW.

The key really is priorities. World of Warcraft should never be more important than basically anything else. I could draw you a long list of things World of Warcraft should never be more important than, including friends, family, social relationships, improving yourself as a person, work, and so on. But it would just be a list of basically everything.