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Large Content Patch To Precede Upcoming WoW Expansion
Blizzard has announced they will be releasing a sizable patch to prepare for the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion to World of Warcraft. The patch, similar to one they released prior to the first expansion, will include the new profession (Inscription), new talents for each class, and two new arenas. The patch will be up on the Public Test Realm "soon," according to a Blizzard rep, but it will require significant testing before reaching the live servers. Blizzard developers Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack gave a related interview recently to Videogamer in which they mentioned that a graphical reboot for World of Warcraft "may never be necessary." We've been following the development of Wrath of the Lich King for a while now.
I stopped playing WOW about a year ago. It was the same thing over and over. Push number, wait for bar to fill, push another number, wait for bar, then loot. Rebuff, and start again. To me, this expansion means nothing. I would be curious to hear if this expansion will cause any players that have left to actually rejoin.
So instead, for entertainment, you read news about WoW and discuss it online. I might have to try that when the server's down or I'm at work...oh wait.
That's not really true in a client-server environment. They can update almost all aspects of the game, and either change regardless of the client, or require the client update for the game to continue to work.
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I played GAME for years - Then I realized that GAME was just a massive waste and only losers/basement-dwellers/twits/sexless-wonders play GAME anymore.
Thank goodness I quit GAME! I can't believe anyone still plays GAME anymore! Everyone should quit!
Besides, NEXT-GAME is the best thing ever! I don't even know why GAME makes news anymore!
-- I really need to bleed off some of this
Maybe if you paid more attention to her character and personality and less to her looks, you'd understand why her boyfriend played WoW all the time.
Just a thought.
"Man is nothing without the works of man" -- Helvetius
You know, if there's one category of people I find mildly amusing, it's the "meh, I played Game X for two years, and thus I have enough experience to say exactly how utterly boring and pointless it is." In fact, only slightly less amusing than the "I played Game X for two years, and then decided it sucks, it's horrible, and only idiots like it." (Admittedly, the OP isn't in the latter category, but you can find plenty of those around.)
Including, yes, such "commentary" as that on Sluggy Freelance.
Here's a thought: If a game held your attention past the, say, 10 to 50 hours an offline game would (with PC ones tending to be the former, and console RPGs... well, at least _used_ to me more toward the latter), then maybe there's _some_ merit in it. If it even kept you there for the "free" month, even playing it at a casual pace, you already saw more content than in 2-3 full price CRPGs nowadays.
There must be _something_ that you must have found interesting or enjoyable there, unless you're trying to tell me that you (and him) are self-hating idiots who punished yourselves for months by doing stuff that was repetitive and boring all along. Obviously not because you were enjoying it, but just, you know, to feel miserable one more month and pay for the privilege.
You're not retarded, are you? I'm guessing you aren't.
Or maybe it's that you'd eventually get bored of anything else, and any other game. Nobody has infinite content, at least until someone invents an AI GM who can pass the Turing test. And nobody has an infinite team of developers, with an infinite total imagination, so each quest and each monster is truly unique. Even then, debatably it's not possible, since there's a finite number of actions and story types that make any sense.
It applies to any other game too. Eventually if you play enough Starcraft or CounterStrike or Oblivion or whatever, guess what? It's starting to repeat itself. Eventually you've seen all maps (or map pieces for games with randomly generated maps), used all weapons, tried all spells, done all quests (if applicable), and that's it. End of the line. It gets repetitive from there. Even before that, exactly in how many ways can you headshot someone in CS or swing a sword at a monster in Oblivion, before it's doing the same things again? Even with a different skin and model on that monster, you're still swinging the same damned sword in the exact same arc, and doing the same block-then-counterattack sequence again. How many times you can zerg rush someone in Starcraft before it's essentially like being an automaton executing the same script over and over again?
At some point it's just time to give up and move on. For some people it's sooner, for others later. But when it stops being entertaining, just move on.
But realize that it's not the game that suddenly qualifies as being sucky, it's just "you". And I'm not saying that in a bad way. It's "you", in as much as you've seen it all, got bored, are no longer interested in it. Fine. Move on.
You didn't suddenly get a revelation about how bad the game is, you just got a revelation about where _your_ limits are. Congrats.
And please lose the preaching. It may look like you just discovered how boring and pointless the game is, and maybe that it's your duty to enlighten others about it. But you only discovered that it just became boring to _you_. I.e., that you're got a human after all. It's not much of an enlightenment to bestow upon anyone else. We were already suspecting that you were human.
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I don't think you should assume it's either side's fault. I knew a girl who felt like she got dumped for WoW, but I also knew her boyfriend, and knew perfectly well that it had nothing to do with WoW: that was just his escape from the fact that he was in a relationship with a girl who was utterly crazy. If you only looked on the surface, you would say, "That bastard ignored and then dumped his girlfriend for WoW!", but you'd be wrong. It was merely a symptom of the fact that their relationship was toast... if it wouldn't have been WoW, it would've been something else.
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There is a difference between choosing to go somewhere unprepared (Ultima Online)and not being able to go there until you ARE prepared (WoW).
Ultima Online left that decision up to the players, not the developers. Example? Try taking your Level 13 WoW Toon into Sunwell for that fat loot. Not possible because the developers choose to make it so.
In Ultima Online, you CAN take an underdeveloped character into such a place, but only if you had numerous friends there to protect you. Far more logical and REALISTIC. But more importantly, from my perspective, to be able to make that decision myself.
Another aspect is that a player with really good actual SKILL at playing UO can get into places with very little preparation or ingame skills. In other words, that "unprepared" character CAN go into such dangerous places IN THE HANDS OF A HIGHLY SKILLED PLAYER. As such, very skilled players are rewarded with even more freedom. I remember getting my ass handed to me by butt-naked Mages simply because they out-classed me skill-wise. They didn't need the gear. Skill was enough. Granted, that has changed somewhat, but not entirely.
Try taking a butt-naked lvl 70 into Alterac Valley. I assure you that you will not last long regardless of skill.