Why WoW stopped being "WOW!"

I think it all began when I was in Terokkar Forest grinding basilisks for leather (for the uninitiated, this is not a sexual innuendo, "to grind" is an MMO term for farming, or continually killing a mob, or monster, for a certain item...it is as interesting as it sounds). At that point, one of my guildmates said over our guild chat that he had found some [Kaldorei Windchimes] during his archeological searching. I believe the conversation went something like this (paraphrased, of course):

Him: Woo! [Kaldorei Windchimes]

Someone else: Awesome! Grats!

Him: Thanks.

Me: What do they do?

Him: They're windchimes, what do you think they do?

Me: ...they make sound?

Him: Yup.

Me: That seems kind of pointless.

Him: Who cares? The whole game is pointless.

Now, as I said, this is almost criminally paraphrased. I'm sure much of what my guildmate said was lost...but to me, this is essentially what the brief interlude, and the two hour discussion that followed, amounted to: WoW is a timesink. It is no longer concerned with substance, with impressing, with WOWing its player base. All it is is sparkle and tinkle, hollow and meaningless vanity items hiding behind blue and purple names...all it is is "good enough."

I have played World of Warcraft for six years. From launch until today, with only two brief breaks, one when I was banished to Wisconsin and did not have the internet, and another when I decided to cancel my subscription for awhile (a couple month break that ended with me returning and being drafted into a guild raid that artificially lengthened my stay long after the game ceased being interesting). So it stands to reason that I believe WoW is a solid game. However, I do not believe that it is a good game anymore. This is a fairly controvertial topic, and one that I have met with a great deal of resistance on during my many attempts to convince others. However, I realized that I was trying to convince people that WoW is no longer great (and indeed, probably no longer /deserves/ to be the top-selling MMO on the market)...while playing WoW. It rather undermined my point somewhat.

Now, once again it bears repeating: I do not think WoW is a bad game. I have greatly enjoyed my six years with it. While I no longer enjoy it nearly as much as I used to (even sitting here trying to decide if I still actually enjoy it, I can't come up with an answer), I still think it's a solid, well-designed game. Those who still enjoy it are entirely justified. However, I feel that those who have grudges with the game, like I do, are entirely justified as well...however, problems truly arise when we try to quit.

Think about where you've lived during your life. Pick a place you've lived for a decade or more. I'll bet you made a few friends. Probably more than a few. Now, think about what it would be like (or was like) to leave that place. This analogy works even better if the place you're thinking about was (or you can imagine it being) somewhere pretty awful. Maybe the weather was bad, maybe it had bad pollution or your apartment/home was in disrepair. I'll bet you'd still have a hard time saying you were happy to (or would be happy to) leave it. This is essentially how I feel about World of Warcraft. I have made many excellent friends, many of whom I have met in person outside of WoW, many of whom I will remain (or hope to remain) good friends with long after I have left WoW. However, this creates a sort of...artificial tether for me, and I believe most of the people who play the game. We're afraid to leave because we think once we do leave, we will sever these ties irrevocably. Worse yet, we believe that it will be difficult, impossible even, to reestablish these ties in another game. It's too much trouble. So why bother trying? So, even long after the game has lost all of its luster, I believe many of us (or maybe it's just me...) stay, loathing the game itself, but loving the people we associate with.

I won't go into some cheesy friendship message here and say how a true friend, no matter how you made them, is one that will stick with you even when you're gone (whoops, I just did say it), but I will say it's a rather unfortunate state of affairs for the gaming industry. I personally know several MMOs that have failed because WoW controls the market...otherwise fine MMOs broken because people were unwilling to give them a chance, unwilling to leave their safety blanket and their good friends to make new friends and find a new game they can genuinely enjoy. In most cases, it's not that these games are bad, it's that A) they are unpolished, as most MMOs are (though we tend to remember with rose-colored glasses, WoW really wasn't that much when it first came out), and B) people aren't willing to give them a fair shake before they go running back to WoW.

I am leaving WoW, and I'll explain why. It's a rather simple reason, really: I no longer believe WoW is the best game on the market. But also, perhaps closer to the point, I do not believe it is the game that it could, nay, should be. I believe it has appeal (perhaps to me and me alone) only in the social bonds you form in the game, which, admittedly, is a good thing for an MMO to have. However, I've felt like the game's innovation, from a company that has shown to be one of the most innovative in the market, has fallen flat. The updates to the game, such as they are, are a parade of raid content (admittedly spectacluar stuff, but it's still only one type of gameplay) with the occasional "dungeons" thrown in when the current raid gear simply won't cut it for what they have planned. While I suppose this works pretty well for what WoW is trying to be, I don't think this is enough to base a game that is the biggest time sink in the history of mankind on. By the end of the last expansion, I was playing the game once a week for the raid content alone. And during the raids, if it weren't for the comical and amusing banter of my guildmates, I would have been bored stiff--or even worse, annoyed by the more quirky and difficult raid bosses. And what was the point? What was the grand reason for raiding? To get gear so you can raid more. Ironically, the end-game raid for this expansion, Ice Crown Citadel, was only there to get better gear so you could finish Ice Crown Citadel...since there was no major raid after that and the new expansion, Cataclysm, would make most of this gear moot. This endless cycle of raiding so you can get more gear so you can raid more just no longer appeals to me.

Ok, some of you might argue that that's the point of the game, to which I concede the point. But for me, that is simply not enough. I would like to emphasize this again: FOR ME, that is not enough. Paying $15 a month for one day a week of questionable enjoyment (questionable because I could, and hope to continue to, enjoy time with friends for free), while not a horrible value, just isn't worth it in my mind. So I am left with, admittedly clever, raid content that eventually will always grow stagnant and boring, which I plod through for better gear with which I can see the next batch of raid content that I can plod through for better gear with which I can see the next batch of raid content that I can plod through...

Once again, I can't call WoW a bad game. But in my opinion it is not the game it could be and I think the real beef I have right now is that there is absolutely no reason it is not the game it could be. What does it need to make it fresh again? I don't know. I'm not a game designer. I can say when /I/ feel it needs: better character models, more customization options to make my character feel unique and special (I went over this a bit in my previous blog, about how City of Heroes and Champions Online's character customization puts you immediately in the right mindset, bonding with your character so as to allow you to better cope with the MMO drudgery), player/guild housing, etc. Player housing in particular is an interesting concept that I really think Blizzard needs to revisit. Allowing its players another timesink, collecting trinkets to decorate our houses with, new crafting professions (carpenter?) and recipes to make kitch for our houses, etc, would add another layer of the game that I know that for me, personally, would rekindle my desire to play...for a time. And therein lies the rub, my friends. Most games are required, in order to continue keeping their players engaged, to continue to innovate. City of Heroes constantly puts out new power sets, powers, costume pieces, as well as their architect system that allows players to come up with their own quest content...they continue to push the envelope because they /have to/. And all of this is on top of releasing what are equivalent to WoW's raids and dungeon content. Since World of Warcraft has been on the top of the heap for so long, Blizzard really just has to kick back and continue giving the lowest common denomonator what they came to see while those of us who keep hoping for more are constantly left disappointed. As I said before, Blizzard is one of the most innovative game developers out there, but they are stagnating simply by virtue of the fact that no one is challenging them to be better. They don't have to be better. They just have to stay good enough to make sure not to completely alienate and chase away its player base. Of course there is also the issue that people are completely crazy when it comes to the slightest change and anything they do outside the norm may chase people away...so maybe it's that they have no reason /to/ innovate and every reason not to. I don't know. What I do know is this: expecting them to change their tune while continuing to subscribe to their service is both hypocritical and against all that silly free market capitalism I'm so fond of. I can speak with my wallet and me and my $15 a month are going elsewhere.

What do I hope to accomplish with this little rant? Nothing, really. Believe it or not I am really not trying to encourage a mass exodus away from WoW. If people still genuinely enjoy it, then I am happy for them. Nor do I expect anyone from Blizzard to read this and have a grand epiphany and change how they operate. That simply is not going to happen. No, I suppose my point is simply to give voice to my major grievances with a game that I once enjoyed but feel has slipped into stagnation, to explain to those I have come to love why I will no longer be playing the game that they still (apparently) love. Perhaps I hope some kindred spirit will read this and say to themselves, "Hey, I feel the same way," to which they will gain the courage with which to follow my example...but I hardly think myself that profound. No, I think in the end I am only engaging in my favorite pasttime of listening to myself speak (write, whatever) and airing some grievances to clear my head. I would leave those of you brave enough to follow this rant through to its conclusion with this: do what you love and what you enjoy. If you enjoy WoW, continue playing it with my blessing...but do not be afraid to leave it if it is no longer the game it used to be, if it has failed to keep up with the market (as I believe it has), or even if you feel it is not the game it should be (also as I believe it has). Gather emails of the people you have come to call friends so you can keep in touch with them and KEEP IN TOUCH WITH THEM. Internet friendships are only hollow and meaningless if you let them be. There is no reason you can't keep in touch with these people. And who knows? Maybe someday you will meet again in World of Warcraft 2.

...Heaven help us all.