Does it Live Up to the Hype?
The WoW Factor
By Nathan Rome
With the recent release of Wrath of the Lich King, World of Warcraft (WoW) is back in the media spotlight once again. There’s a good chance you’ve heard of the game. Maybe you’ve read reports that WoW’s latest expansion has become the fastest selling PC game of all time, heard about how WoW’s 11 million-plus subscribers have made Blizzard one of the world’s most successful video game companies, or seen the articles about players dying from an “addiction” to the game. Heck, with a subscriber base of more than 11 million players, you probably know someone who plays; you may just not know they play. So what’s all the fuss about? Is it actually worth it, or is it just another gaming fad you can afford to miss out on?
WoW is a massive-multiplayer-online-role-playing game, or MMORPG for short. What does that mean in the real world? These days the actual definition has become a bit gray, but it refers to a role-playing game that allows for millions of people to be a part of a persistent-online world. Think Second Life, but with a purpose and direction. You can group up with any of the millions of people currently online to complete missions, talk, trade or even form a guild, which is a collection of people that like to interact on a consistent basis. Think of it as your friend network on Facebook, except within the game.
The important thing to remember about MMORPGs that makes them so different from any other game you’ve played is that MMORPGs don’t stop when you quit playing. The world keeps living and breathing, and you won’t walk into the same thing when you log back in. MMORPGs also provide new content, levels/areas, characters, missions, etc. through game updates and patches. Also, many, not all, MMORPGs require a monthly subscription to continue playing. The games that do not require a subscription normally have some kind of monetary-based system in the game that requires you to purchase items, upgrades or game enhancements and often sell new content packages rather than free updates.
Another important note to remember: This isn’t the first time this has been done. You might remember hearing about a game called EverQuest back in the late 90s. Well, this is built around the same principles/ideas, just with Blizzard’s touch and new capabilities. That’s important to note because it plays into the hype. A lot of mainstream media would lead you to believe that this covers ground that the world has never seen, which is only half-true. It’s correct that we’ve never seen this kind of popularity for a PC game, let alone a PC game that not only requires you to purchase the game but also pay a monthly charge ($15 in the case of WoW) to continue playing. Although, it’s not true that Blizzard’s done something the world has never seen. A lot of WoW was derived from a collection of very similar games in this market; Blizzard just put them together in a package that catered to a more mainstream audience.
Now that you have a basic idea of the MMORPG market, we can dive into what Blizzard has done with WoW and why it is, or isn’t, substantial. WoW is based on Blizzard’s highly successful real-time-strategy series Warcraft. The plot is pretty long and complicated. There is an entire Wiki site dedicated to the lore if you’re interested. I’ll warn you now, Blizzard doesn’t try to hide the fact that their games are very similar to a collection of books you may have read or a movie you may have seen. Let’s just say it involves elves, orcs, humans, dwarves and little human-like creatures WoW calls gnomes. It’s pretty stereotypical of what you would expect from an RPG.
So the design of the game is pretty stereotypical of the industry and the story is something you’ve already seen/read. The amazing thing about WoW is that there isn’t one amazing thing. It’s that everything is done really well. In this market, that’s never been done before and still hasn’t been replicated. In the past, if you were looking for graphics you played one game, if you were interested in a story you played another and if you were interested in combat you went to another. Blizzard took pieces from each game, pooled them together and added lots of user-friendly polish to make a game that provides people with the opportunity to have a good time no matter what their main interest is. Then Blizzard added its expertise at creating a user-friendly experience to ensure players were able to do things quickly and easily with little complication. While this made many hardcore-MMORPG players scoff because they claimed it was too easy, it also invited millions of new gamers to the spectrum that were previously too confused by the gameplay mechanics of something like EverQuest.
You can do anything and everything in WoW. When you hit level 80 you can do end-game raiding (high-level instances that require 10-25 players to complete), PvP combat (person-versus-person combat where you compete with other players) or both. If you prefer, you can specialize in making and selling items while trying your hand at economics and playing the “auction house” aka WoW stock market. Most people will find something that interests them in the game and is fun. Blizzard has done a fine job of giving this game and this industry mass appeal.
Does this make it worth it? When it first came out, definitely. Four years ago, when WoW first debuted, it was a must-have. Two expansions later, it’s still an amazing game and a must-have, but a lot of great alternatives have come out that offer similar experiences. Games like Lord of the Rings Online deliver a similar user-friendly experience, while also offering advanced graphics and an opportunity to interact and be a part of one of the world’s greatest series of novels.
The other problem WoW faces is that it’s become very focused on its existing userbase and most of that userbase has been playing for two years or more. The latest Wrath of the Lich King expansion offers little to nothing to people new to WoW. Additionally, many existing players already have several characters at the highest level in the game, so finding groups for additional quests can be difficult in some of the lower-level zones in the original game and first expansion.
That being said, WoW is still the premiere MMORPG in the world and that’s most likely not going to change any time soon. WoW has had such an impact on PC gaming that it’s surpassed being a fad. It’s on its way to becoming a cultural icon. If you think you will play the game enough to justify $15 a month, then by all means you should try it out. You can actually download the full game and a free 10-day trial at Blizzard’s site if you’re undecided. You can also check out the game’s reviews which provide a pretty comprehensive overview.
E-mail the authors: Nathan Johnson
