Game might suck but does it matter?

March 16, 2007

Poseurism » End of the World (…….of Warcraft)

I searched the word “mundane” on technorati.com and this was like the fourth or fifth search result… And since I thought I’d do my oh so complex “Online Documentary” on the community of World of Warcraft and how it’s a synthetic replacement for real life or “RL” (which is often referred to as some sort of crazy distant plane of existence by some players… and the common “RL over WOW, man” or “sometimes, RL happens”) I thought it might a good idea to link this to my blog so that I wouldn’t forget about it.

This gentleman complains about this crappy gameplay in World of Warcraft and the laziness of Blizzard to actally make the game more than a stupid grind for “reputation” which takes times…. to get some stupid item that one can finally use to kill other plays… but instead, there’s other “reputation” to “grind.” He goes into much detail about the weakness of the game and how it does not really entertain him anymore because of the lack of variety… anyway, it’s all quite valid… but regardless of all that, he’s played the game for one and a half years. I’m not sure when he became unhappy with the game, but most of the quests have been quite boring for more than that time period, and assuming the “cool it’s new” factor wore off after 6 months… he did continue to play it for another year… my question is WHY did he keep playing… without making it sound wanky and ignore the actual gameplay which can make it addictive – perhaps it was the online community of people who one grinds, raids and socialises with online that makes/made him stay and play…  I mean talking to people on things like teamspeak or vent while playing, or even in-game guild-chat can act as a community which replaces “RL” or at least substitutes for some parts of it… I know of some sad cases where people only do that, and even “RL” social events are surrounding World of Warcraft and the community created therein.

I’ll probably comment on his blog and ask…