Most previous MMOs have been PvE games, balanced around PvE, with PvP tacked on as an afterthought. I can only think of just a couple exceptions, which judging by your statement aren't games you're coming from.
Warhammer, on the other hand, is a PvP game with PvE balanced around the PvP. That's not to say PvE feels tacked on in this game like PvP does in others (they did some really cool things with PvE I think), although it is clear that the greatest effort went into the PvP core.
All of that is by way of saying, if you just absolutely detest PvP, Warhammer may not be for you. Then again, I know a lot of people who hated PvP and were strict PvE'ers, but after trying it in Warhammer thought, "Wow, this is actually FUN!" If, on the other hand, you're worried about PvP breaking the PvE, then don't, because the PvE is balanced around the game's PvP core to begin with.
I'd say wait a couple months, then try it if you haven't heard anything that really turns you off. I think it's fantastic, and honestly even the though of going back to play WoW depresses me, but it has a few kinks that still need to be worked out.
On the other hand, if you think a lack of complete polish won't bother you so much, I'd recommend it over to anyone except the crazies who actually like end-game WoW style raiding (sorry if you're one of them, but I calls it like I sees it). You're really going to want 2 gigs of ram to play it though, so if you're at 1 gig or less, I'd spend the $30 for the upgrade there.
1) OS X is slow for gaming. OpenGL, same game, virtually same code, Boot OS X Native, Vista Native, Windows wins everytime by a large number.
If a game engined is designed from the ground up around OpenGL, and designed from the ground up around DirectX, there's no reason one should be slower than the other. Contrary to what you seem to believe, OpenGL is NOT inherently slower. There are two things that could cause this kind of effect, (1) faulty drivers (which are often a problem, but that's a problem with ATI/nVidia, not OpenGL), and (2) not optimizing for OpenGL like you would optimize for DirectX.
2) State of OpenGL is bad at the moment, and Apple has put all their fruit in the basket. OpenGL isn't even trying to catch up to DirectX 10, let alone 11, which will be the next big thing. (Go read Tom's Hardware on OpenGL/DirectX11).
I have no idea what you mean by "trying to catch up with" here. OpenGL and DirectX are very different in how they add new features. With DirectX, everything is centrally controlled by Microsoft. Only a new version of DirectX will allow new features to enter the API. OpenGL, on the other hand, allows for vendors to include whatever extensions they like, and has a method of "standardizing" on vendor extensions that haven't yet made it into the core API. To wit, OpenGL is, in a strict technical sense, just as capable as DirectX.
I'm not interested in looking up this Tom's Hardware article, but as a hobby game programmer myself this is something I follow. The complaint currently being leveled against OpenGL is very specific. The OpenGL review board had been promising a vastly reworked and much more streamlined version of OpenGL in the upcoming revision 3.0. Essentially, they had been promising a very elegant, more object oriented approach. Recently they essentially did a complete turnaround and decided to release 3.0 in a state that would more appropriately be called 2.2 or something. It got a lot of developers up in arms, but it's made out to be a lot worse a deal than it really is.
Really, the problem is that DirectX has become easier to program with while OpenGL gets more bloated, which is funny considering it's Microsoft and how absolutely HORRIBLE its very first versions were.
You'll probably like that in WAR, tanks can actually tank. In PvP. Nothing like watching a shield tank take a beating from five people at once and still go down slowly.
I've seen Warcraft advertisements peppering a number of Warhammer message boards as well. Blizzard is definitely scared enough that they've launched an ad campaign apparently in direct response to the release of Warhammer.
The fifth book actually ended things. It was a good end. It was a final end. As things stand now the "trilogy" is complete and self-contained. The last thing I want is possibly the most brilliant sci-fi comedy ever written to go the way of Discworld (first book in the series was brilliant, but after that... yeah...). Please leave well enough alone:(
As far as I'm aware, AT&T can say whatever the hell they want in a notice like that. Whether any of it is legally enforceable is another matter entirely. I mean, contracts require certain niceties like, you know, both sides actually agreeing to them. I imagine this will be treated as a contract of adhesion in the worst possible light if it ever actually comes to court.
She likes horses and has had them since she was a little girl maybe something about horses. If you can't I understand but would really reallly appreciate it.
It's always seemed to me that iTunes for Windows was just slapdash kludge for allowing compatibility between iPods and Windows. My experiences with it have been nothing but buggy and slooooooow. Honestly, I think it just needs to be rebuilt from the ground up for Windows.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong because I haven't experienced this part of the game, but WAR allows guilds to capture and hold keeps, from which they will receive benefits. Obviously, this requires that they actually defend those keeps. Apparently, this mechanic still needs some work on the details, but as I understand, it's in there.
This doesn't really present a "lose everything" situation, but the simple fact is that the people who have any interest in risking losing everything in a game where they just want to have fun constitute a vanishingly small minority. Nothing wrong with that, it's just how it is. I guess I'm just saying is that most of us don't need that aspect to find PvP compelling. I've found that WAR provides more than enough incentive to make me feel compelled to participate.
Man, only in San Francisco. We just... we just do things our own way here. Honestly, it's probably just under some homeless dude who's using it as a bed because it's warm.
Sorry, this is a very late response, but it doesn't matter when they register the trademark if they don't actively use it. Trademarks are one of those things that have to be actively maintained by doing business under that mark. So, unless they were actually doing business under the NISSAN name from 1959 onward, their rights to that mark would have been lost. I honestly don't know the history, but from the admittedly one-sided things I read, they were in fact doing business under the name DATSUN. In other words, you can't just register a mark, not use it for 50 years, and then sue somebody because they do.
I've got to disagree. That's some interesting theorizing, but the things you are saying are almost orthogonal to the experience of playing WAR. They just don't register, as it were. Which is to say, you're talking about a different KIND of PvP than what's for offer with WAR. You're talking about the UO/Shadowbane style of PvP. Totally unstructured, essentially anarchy except for the order the players force onto it. That's fun in its own way, but WAR just offers a different, much more structured approach. And honestly, in the end, I think you're fundamentally wrong. The RvR in WAR, so far as I've experienced, is in fact very compelling. Just in a very different way from what you're expecting.
Say no more. I'd say stick with WoW. WAR is just really not for you. It's not a raiding game. For me, that's amazingly good. Raiding in WoW was easily the WORST time I've ever had playing any computer game, bar none. For people who like it though, PvE raiding is, and I think will be for some time to come, WoW's domain. That's just what WoW does, and not something WAR even really tries to do to nearly the same degree.
That's not to say there are no tough PvE bosses in WAR. It's just not as much of a regular and integral experience as it is in WoW. And generally the big PvE encounters are all based off of PvP accomplishment. For example, when you capture the enemy capital city, you get to fight and kill the king, which is a raid-type encounter. But in order to get there it's all about the RvR. That's how you capture the city.
That said, WAR RvR is not like WoW PvP. It's really a different experience. Whereas WoW's PvP is more or less tacked on to a PvE core, WAR was built around it. I've known several people who felt the same as you--not so into the PvP, mainly liking PvE--but have ended up loving the RvR. And that's what the end-game in WAR really is. RvR everywhere, all the time. It's very fun, but it's really a different breed of end-game from what you're used to.
Probably the biggest way it differs from WoW is that every class has a unique and useful role to play, and they have to work together and coordinate at a much higher level. Tanks can actually TANK; coming from WoW you'll be very surprised how hard it is even for multiple DPS classes to burn a tank down in WAR. There is collision detection, which is huge; you can't run through players at all. So, for example, you can have a line of tanks wall up across a narrow passage, for example, and actually completely prevent your opponents from getting through. Set some healers up behind them and you have an effective blockade. The mechanics of combat also are just very different. Every class in WAR works off of the equivalent of a WoW rogue's energy, with additional unique mechanics layered on top of that. What this means, most importantly I think, is that there is no mana for casters. Spells work off of this same quickly replenishing energy bar. Overall this all makes the mechanics of combat MUCH more strategic and slower paced, and less twitchy, although combat still does get quite frantic.
Aside from that, PvP/RvR in WAR is actually meaningful. There's sort of a grand RvR cycle which all leads up to ransacking your opponents' capital city. Everything you do contributes to that, and that in itself is a major event, unlike anything in WoW. It has open world PvP--capturing keeps and objectives in non-instanced areas--which WoW doesn't really have anything meaningfully equivalent to, although I hear the next expansion will integrate things like siege weaponry like WAR has. WAR will probably do it better than WotLK.
WAR has battlegrounds, although it calls them scenarios. They are much more focused and quick than the WoW equivalent. They all have time limits, 15 minutes or so, so you'll never have to deal with a 3 hour Warsong Gulch (god I hated that battleground). Also, WAR has a HUGE VARIETY of scenarios. Really, there's more different kinds with different gameplay and objectives than you can shake a stick at. With the short running time, you can get a good variety of play in.
If you can't tell yet, I absolutely love WAR. I could never go back to playing WoW at this point. It really is very different from WoW on a lot of levels, and if you're at all interested in this sort of thing, I can almost guarantee you'll get your $50 worth and then some.
You should really try WAR before knocking it so hard. I've known a LOT of people who have been strictly PvE in WoW and other games because they hated PvP, but have reluctantly tried it in WAR and absolutely loved it. PvP in WAR is actually a very, very different experience from other games I've played. It's, oddly enough, much friendlier, and something that less "hardcore" people can easily enjoy on their own terms. For example, unlike WoW, EVERYBODY CAN CONTRIBUTE. It doesn't matter what class you are, or how you specialize, or even what level you are, I have found that, regardless, you always feel useful in RvR/PvP as long as you play your role well. Give it a try, I think you'll be surprised.
Until you get fired. Union workers CAN still get fired for, you know, not actually working. If you have an employer who doesn't care that his employees aren't actually doing the work they're being paid for, then unions are the least of your problems. Communism? Hardly.
Judging by your comments, you shouldn't be blindly accusing others of misunderstanding trademark law. You might want to look into that a little so you can understand why an auto maker has no business suing someone for having the same mark registered for selling computers.
As for your little spiel about him needing to have it registered, HE DOES as of 1995 apparently. Honestly, you need to at least do a little research if you're going to go around accusing people of not understanding matters.
Second, if Nissan Motors didn't try to get their domain back, they would have a hard time showing that they were diligent in protecting their mark. Actively defending your mark from misuse is a requirement imposed by the trademark laws. If they don't do this in ALL cases, they would have a hard time suing anyone over trademark misuse.
I'm sorry, but this is bullshit. It's 100% apparent from even cursory examination that Uzi Nissan is using the name well within his rights. He's selling computers under it, and hasn't sold cars under it SINCE BEFORE NISSAN MOTORS EXISTED (it was called Datsun at the time). An even cursory examination of public records on behalf of Nissan Motors would have been all the "diligence" they needed to see this guy is doing nothing outside of his own legal rights, as the courts eventually (after a long process of apparent incompetence) managed to find. No, this sort of corporate bullying isn't "diligence," it's vexatious and frivolous, not to mention counterproductive for EVERYBODY involved. It's just a shame our legal system is becoming so perverted that this sort of nonsense isn't squashed immediately, rather than worming its way through several years and millions of dollars in pointless legal expenses. If Nissan Motors had simply offered him a decent sum to buy the domain that is clearly rightfully his to begin with, they would have saved themselves a lot of money and bad publicity.
I believe there's a system in Warhammer that turns high level players who try to gank into chickens. I mean, literally, little chickens that run around and can't do anything. I haven't played though, so I don't know the exact details.
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.
While I agree with much of what you're saying, I think you're missing some of the point. There are plenty of games out there that people can play their entire lives, regularly, and still enjoy. Usually this is because of some elegant quality of the mechanics of the game that keeps something in the experience "fresh" regardless of how much it has been played. For me, Go is an example. The subtle permutations of play and territory capture against opponents who always have a unique style really never gets old. As for computer games, again for me, Nethack is a good example. I've been playing that game regularly for over a decade and I still enjoy it thoroughly. Starcraft, I think, is a good example of a more modern game that many people have been playing extensively since its release and still enjoy.
The problem with WoW, specifically, though it has its many fine qualities, is that the "hook" of the game isn't the fundamental game itself. For almost everybody I know, the real hook of WoW is one of the "meta-games." Things like gear progression, level progression, PvP ladders, stuff like that. To put it another way, if everybody had the same gear, at the same level, with all the same skills, there would be VERY little reason to play WoW. And the problem with the progression meta-game is its fundamentally limited by the amount of content available. Thus, the complaint that it "gets old and repetitive" in ways that many other games simply don't.
I take a slightly different approach. I just play them until I start spending a significant amount of time not-having-fun. In WoW that was maybe a year after hitting 60, and maybe 2 months after hitting 70, when the gameplay (PvP mainly here) just got old and uninteresting. I'm hoping for one to come along where the gameplay itself is compelling enough to keep me going, simply because it's just fun to play.
Yeah. Because, hopefully, all the old friends I use to hang out with, or at least some of them, will re sign up as well.
This isn't a mean-spirited troll, but I thought your logic was rather amusing: yeah, people will want to rejoin, because it'll make people want to rejoin.
Slashdot Mirror
Most previous MMOs have been PvE games, balanced around PvE, with PvP tacked on as an afterthought. I can only think of just a couple exceptions, which judging by your statement aren't games you're coming from.
Warhammer, on the other hand, is a PvP game with PvE balanced around the PvP. That's not to say PvE feels tacked on in this game like PvP does in others (they did some really cool things with PvE I think), although it is clear that the greatest effort went into the PvP core.
All of that is by way of saying, if you just absolutely detest PvP, Warhammer may not be for you. Then again, I know a lot of people who hated PvP and were strict PvE'ers, but after trying it in Warhammer thought, "Wow, this is actually FUN!" If, on the other hand, you're worried about PvP breaking the PvE, then don't, because the PvE is balanced around the game's PvP core to begin with.
I'd say wait a couple months, then try it if you haven't heard anything that really turns you off. I think it's fantastic, and honestly even the though of going back to play WoW depresses me, but it has a few kinks that still need to be worked out.
On the other hand, if you think a lack of complete polish won't bother you so much, I'd recommend it over to anyone except the crazies who actually like end-game WoW style raiding (sorry if you're one of them, but I calls it like I sees it). You're really going to want 2 gigs of ram to play it though, so if you're at 1 gig or less, I'd spend the $30 for the upgrade there.
If a game engined is designed from the ground up around OpenGL, and designed from the ground up around DirectX, there's no reason one should be slower than the other. Contrary to what you seem to believe, OpenGL is NOT inherently slower. There are two things that could cause this kind of effect, (1) faulty drivers (which are often a problem, but that's a problem with ATI/nVidia, not OpenGL), and (2) not optimizing for OpenGL like you would optimize for DirectX.
I have no idea what you mean by "trying to catch up with" here. OpenGL and DirectX are very different in how they add new features. With DirectX, everything is centrally controlled by Microsoft. Only a new version of DirectX will allow new features to enter the API. OpenGL, on the other hand, allows for vendors to include whatever extensions they like, and has a method of "standardizing" on vendor extensions that haven't yet made it into the core API. To wit, OpenGL is, in a strict technical sense, just as capable as DirectX.
I'm not interested in looking up this Tom's Hardware article, but as a hobby game programmer myself this is something I follow. The complaint currently being leveled against OpenGL is very specific. The OpenGL review board had been promising a vastly reworked and much more streamlined version of OpenGL in the upcoming revision 3.0. Essentially, they had been promising a very elegant, more object oriented approach. Recently they essentially did a complete turnaround and decided to release 3.0 in a state that would more appropriately be called 2.2 or something. It got a lot of developers up in arms, but it's made out to be a lot worse a deal than it really is.
Really, the problem is that DirectX has become easier to program with while OpenGL gets more bloated, which is funny considering it's Microsoft and how absolutely HORRIBLE its very first versions were.
You'll probably like that in WAR, tanks can actually tank. In PvP. Nothing like watching a shield tank take a beating from five people at once and still go down slowly.
I've seen Warcraft advertisements peppering a number of Warhammer message boards as well. Blizzard is definitely scared enough that they've launched an ad campaign apparently in direct response to the release of Warhammer.
*** MINOR SPOILER ALERT ***
:(
The fifth book actually ended things. It was a good end. It was a final end. As things stand now the "trilogy" is complete and self-contained. The last thing I want is possibly the most brilliant sci-fi comedy ever written to go the way of Discworld (first book in the series was brilliant, but after that... yeah...). Please leave well enough alone
*** MINOR SPOILER ALERT ***
As far as I'm aware, AT&T can say whatever the hell they want in a notice like that. Whether any of it is legally enforceable is another matter entirely. I mean, contracts require certain niceties like, you know, both sides actually agreeing to them. I imagine this will be treated as a contract of adhesion in the worst possible light if it ever actually comes to court.
It's decided. We need more OMG PONIES.
It's always seemed to me that iTunes for Windows was just slapdash kludge for allowing compatibility between iPods and Windows. My experiences with it have been nothing but buggy and slooooooow. Honestly, I think it just needs to be rebuilt from the ground up for Windows.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong because I haven't experienced this part of the game, but WAR allows guilds to capture and hold keeps, from which they will receive benefits. Obviously, this requires that they actually defend those keeps. Apparently, this mechanic still needs some work on the details, but as I understand, it's in there.
This doesn't really present a "lose everything" situation, but the simple fact is that the people who have any interest in risking losing everything in a game where they just want to have fun constitute a vanishingly small minority. Nothing wrong with that, it's just how it is. I guess I'm just saying is that most of us don't need that aspect to find PvP compelling. I've found that WAR provides more than enough incentive to make me feel compelled to participate.
Racism on the internet? Wow, well there goes man's last bastion of thoughtful and polite social intercourse.
Man, only in San Francisco. We just... we just do things our own way here. Honestly, it's probably just under some homeless dude who's using it as a bed because it's warm.
Sorry, this is a very late response, but it doesn't matter when they register the trademark if they don't actively use it. Trademarks are one of those things that have to be actively maintained by doing business under that mark. So, unless they were actually doing business under the NISSAN name from 1959 onward, their rights to that mark would have been lost. I honestly don't know the history, but from the admittedly one-sided things I read, they were in fact doing business under the name DATSUN. In other words, you can't just register a mark, not use it for 50 years, and then sue somebody because they do.
I've got to disagree. That's some interesting theorizing, but the things you are saying are almost orthogonal to the experience of playing WAR. They just don't register, as it were. Which is to say, you're talking about a different KIND of PvP than what's for offer with WAR. You're talking about the UO/Shadowbane style of PvP. Totally unstructured, essentially anarchy except for the order the players force onto it. That's fun in its own way, but WAR just offers a different, much more structured approach. And honestly, in the end, I think you're fundamentally wrong. The RvR in WAR, so far as I've experienced, is in fact very compelling. Just in a very different way from what you're expecting.
Say no more. I'd say stick with WoW. WAR is just really not for you. It's not a raiding game. For me, that's amazingly good. Raiding in WoW was easily the WORST time I've ever had playing any computer game, bar none. For people who like it though, PvE raiding is, and I think will be for some time to come, WoW's domain. That's just what WoW does, and not something WAR even really tries to do to nearly the same degree.
That's not to say there are no tough PvE bosses in WAR. It's just not as much of a regular and integral experience as it is in WoW. And generally the big PvE encounters are all based off of PvP accomplishment. For example, when you capture the enemy capital city, you get to fight and kill the king, which is a raid-type encounter. But in order to get there it's all about the RvR. That's how you capture the city.
That said, WAR RvR is not like WoW PvP. It's really a different experience. Whereas WoW's PvP is more or less tacked on to a PvE core, WAR was built around it. I've known several people who felt the same as you--not so into the PvP, mainly liking PvE--but have ended up loving the RvR. And that's what the end-game in WAR really is. RvR everywhere, all the time. It's very fun, but it's really a different breed of end-game from what you're used to.
Probably the biggest way it differs from WoW is that every class has a unique and useful role to play, and they have to work together and coordinate at a much higher level. Tanks can actually TANK; coming from WoW you'll be very surprised how hard it is even for multiple DPS classes to burn a tank down in WAR. There is collision detection, which is huge; you can't run through players at all. So, for example, you can have a line of tanks wall up across a narrow passage, for example, and actually completely prevent your opponents from getting through. Set some healers up behind them and you have an effective blockade. The mechanics of combat also are just very different. Every class in WAR works off of the equivalent of a WoW rogue's energy, with additional unique mechanics layered on top of that. What this means, most importantly I think, is that there is no mana for casters. Spells work off of this same quickly replenishing energy bar. Overall this all makes the mechanics of combat MUCH more strategic and slower paced, and less twitchy, although combat still does get quite frantic.
Aside from that, PvP/RvR in WAR is actually meaningful. There's sort of a grand RvR cycle which all leads up to ransacking your opponents' capital city. Everything you do contributes to that, and that in itself is a major event, unlike anything in WoW. It has open world PvP--capturing keeps and objectives in non-instanced areas--which WoW doesn't really have anything meaningfully equivalent to, although I hear the next expansion will integrate things like siege weaponry like WAR has. WAR will probably do it better than WotLK.
WAR has battlegrounds, although it calls them scenarios. They are much more focused and quick than the WoW equivalent. They all have time limits, 15 minutes or so, so you'll never have to deal with a 3 hour Warsong Gulch (god I hated that battleground). Also, WAR has a HUGE VARIETY of scenarios. Really, there's more different kinds with different gameplay and objectives than you can shake a stick at. With the short running time, you can get a good variety of play in.
If you can't tell yet, I absolutely love WAR. I could never go back to playing WoW at this point. It really is very different from WoW on a lot of levels, and if you're at all interested in this sort of thing, I can almost guarantee you'll get your $50 worth and then some.
You should really try WAR before knocking it so hard. I've known a LOT of people who have been strictly PvE in WoW and other games because they hated PvP, but have reluctantly tried it in WAR and absolutely loved it. PvP in WAR is actually a very, very different experience from other games I've played. It's, oddly enough, much friendlier, and something that less "hardcore" people can easily enjoy on their own terms. For example, unlike WoW, EVERYBODY CAN CONTRIBUTE. It doesn't matter what class you are, or how you specialize, or even what level you are, I have found that, regardless, you always feel useful in RvR/PvP as long as you play your role well. Give it a try, I think you'll be surprised.
There, fixed that for you. Not like unionizing will help that anyway though.
Until you get fired. Union workers CAN still get fired for, you know, not actually working. If you have an employer who doesn't care that his employees aren't actually doing the work they're being paid for, then unions are the least of your problems. Communism? Hardly.
Judging by your comments, you shouldn't be blindly accusing others of misunderstanding trademark law. You might want to look into that a little so you can understand why an auto maker has no business suing someone for having the same mark registered for selling computers.
As for your little spiel about him needing to have it registered, HE DOES as of 1995 apparently. Honestly, you need to at least do a little research if you're going to go around accusing people of not understanding matters.
I'm sorry, but this is bullshit. It's 100% apparent from even cursory examination that Uzi Nissan is using the name well within his rights. He's selling computers under it, and hasn't sold cars under it SINCE BEFORE NISSAN MOTORS EXISTED (it was called Datsun at the time). An even cursory examination of public records on behalf of Nissan Motors would have been all the "diligence" they needed to see this guy is doing nothing outside of his own legal rights, as the courts eventually (after a long process of apparent incompetence) managed to find. No, this sort of corporate bullying isn't "diligence," it's vexatious and frivolous, not to mention counterproductive for EVERYBODY involved. It's just a shame our legal system is becoming so perverted that this sort of nonsense isn't squashed immediately, rather than worming its way through several years and millions of dollars in pointless legal expenses. If Nissan Motors had simply offered him a decent sum to buy the domain that is clearly rightfully his to begin with, they would have saved themselves a lot of money and bad publicity.
I believe there's a system in Warhammer that turns high level players who try to gank into chickens. I mean, literally, little chickens that run around and can't do anything. I haven't played though, so I don't know the exact details.
While I agree with much of what you're saying, I think you're missing some of the point. There are plenty of games out there that people can play their entire lives, regularly, and still enjoy. Usually this is because of some elegant quality of the mechanics of the game that keeps something in the experience "fresh" regardless of how much it has been played. For me, Go is an example. The subtle permutations of play and territory capture against opponents who always have a unique style really never gets old. As for computer games, again for me, Nethack is a good example. I've been playing that game regularly for over a decade and I still enjoy it thoroughly. Starcraft, I think, is a good example of a more modern game that many people have been playing extensively since its release and still enjoy.
The problem with WoW, specifically, though it has its many fine qualities, is that the "hook" of the game isn't the fundamental game itself. For almost everybody I know, the real hook of WoW is one of the "meta-games." Things like gear progression, level progression, PvP ladders, stuff like that. To put it another way, if everybody had the same gear, at the same level, with all the same skills, there would be VERY little reason to play WoW. And the problem with the progression meta-game is its fundamentally limited by the amount of content available. Thus, the complaint that it "gets old and repetitive" in ways that many other games simply don't.
My two cents anyway.
I take a slightly different approach. I just play them until I start spending a significant amount of time not-having-fun. In WoW that was maybe a year after hitting 60, and maybe 2 months after hitting 70, when the gameplay (PvP mainly here) just got old and uninteresting. I'm hoping for one to come along where the gameplay itself is compelling enough to keep me going, simply because it's just fun to play.
This isn't a mean-spirited troll, but I thought your logic was rather amusing: yeah, people will want to rejoin, because it'll make people want to rejoin.
FATAL bone spurs? Wow, I can't even imagine the mechanics of how that would work, but it certainly sounds unpleasant!