Why I don't like Warcraft

Any game which requires you to set aside alot of time for it, can be a problem. Games in and of themselves shouldn't be a part of anyone's primary focus. The thing I don't like about Warcraft is that it takes alot of concentration to play. A good player should have to mull over his or her character and figure out how to play it best.

That concentration comes at a terrible cost. Warcraft players sense a hidden bond between themselves - often when two people who play warcraft meet, there is an adopted language of the game that they will use to convey their respective accomplishments and ideas about the game. There is a finite chance that you will use the word "goblin" in a sentence. This is not necessarily a good thing.

A conversation is a transaction between two human beings with hidden, implicit expectation. If we talk chess, normally there is a well defined line we cross in which we are discussing the game in a careful manner - and when we are simply talking to each other. The goal in chess is to win. And what adds color to the conversation, is that if the person you are speaking with is good enough - both of you may toy with the possibility, during conversation - that you will find the other on the opposite side of the chessboard. At which point, both of you may realize that any strategy, or tips you can convey - will ultimately revisit you on the chessboard as a betrayed strategy. The conversation is pleasant but guarded.

In Warcraft, often conversations take a frantic tone - there is so much to do in the game. This comes largely as the result of layers of iterative end-game questing and a general sense from the designers of being unable to predict where the majority of players will find stasis. The goal of the company that produces Warcraft - is to make a game that is engaging enough on a month over month basis to maintain a subscription base that sufficiently offsets the cost of very expensive physics servers and network hosting facilities. At 15 million subscribers paying an average fee of 14.00 a month, suffice to say that they've reached that goal. But in so doing , we've translated the people who play it - nearly three times in the past six years - and this has caused them to adopt a tone in which , when they meet another who has played the game - they will often attempt to discover what they've missed. On the outset, the game designers had no idea how many would play, or whether or not they would enjoy levelling up past a certain point. And so there are three tiers of endgame content, each with three different sets of really difficult to obtain 'achievements' for that class, at that level. A warcraft player , whether he or she has attained level cap - is always attempting to better themselves by that content.

And it is quite obvious in the early content that the point of endgame content was to create a loop in which a player might cycle through - of endless expense, impossible accomplishment, and guild achievement. It is this last aspect of the endgame design flaw - that bothers me the most.

A guild is a group of people who basically don't know each other, that are trying to accomplish endgame achievement. In the early design of Warcraft, the feature of guild was more or less a simple way in which players could discuss the game and group and work together. But it became clear to the designers of the game that the role of guild should be elevated above this function - to an almost social mechanism. The guild itself, at current design - is now a means by which players can rapidly level alternative characters, and acquire rewards. The cynical goal of incentivization of social structure and network returns back to original game design: keep the players who play heavily, involved in the game. And to do this, they plan on keeping them in a group.

Ultimately, players who decide to play the game despite its flaws - end up deciding on a personal basis. Everyone who plays warcraft eventually figures out that the game is a timesink, and that the fantasy aspect of the game - while overwhelming - does not constitute a language of achievement when mastered. Rather, they discover that there is an active team of people who are working to keep them engaged, and entertained. The qualitative decision of whether or not one might be able to find that entertainment in the real world as opposed to a massive, multiplayer world online - is one that arrives early and late in the game. The midgame is so well designed that many, when they've worked their way into midgame content - will continue up until level cap.

At level cap, for me, the game changes. And the flaws become more apparent. Whenever one meets someone else who plays warcraft, normally those flaws don't come up for discussion. But then again, perhaps the flaws within the person themself are part of the reason.

The game designers are by and large good people. But the game company itself is a cynical beast. They have already set milestones out for two additional expansions and then the final installation of the game. This is due to constraints placed on them by stakeholders, and the guidance given to them by consulting professionals - who , I am sure, have told them that at some point the game itself will be technically obsolete. There will be an end to the game. But the game designers don't get to decide when. Only how.

It is the game company itself that seems to drive most of the flaws of the game. And they probably don't like to admit that someone who spends six hours a day in a fantasy world, probably doesn't have a place in the real world.

Then again, if you're spending six hours at night ... you're probably just going to walk through the real world in a daze. And you might be interested to see how much of that you can get away with.

Um. Like. Say. Writing a blog post, while you're supposed to be working? :)