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[Büge]

You guyyyyyys

I didn't get a chance to weigh in on WoW, you guyyyyyyyyys

[Doom]

The above has been split-merged into the exciting thread you read today.

From now on, all "IS WOW AN OK GAME IT RUINS LIVES NO WAY THOSE DOPES WERE ADDICTIVE MONKEYS ANYWAY WHO JUST FOUND WOW BEFORE THEY FOUND A NEEDLE AWWW FUCK YOU MAN" discussion goes here. Period.

Here's a standard for an actual argument.

[Bleck]

wow is poopgame

[Mongrel]

HUH UH

ITS MADE OF DOODIES

[McDohl]

WORLD OF TURDCRAFT

[Defenestration]

Looks like this thread is off to a great start. Sky's the limit here.

[Classic]

The first thread I can post in on this board! Sweet.

Will probably be getting on this WoW biz sometime in the next 18 months.

[Brentai]

I did admit I was trolling when I started this, but I'm not 100% being facetious.  WoW is destructive and I hate it for that.

I don't actually dislike people who play the game, but on the other hand I'm serious when I say I don't want to get too deeply involved with them.  I've been outprioritized by "just a game" before, and it hurts especially because certain people won't even acknowledge that that is a problem.

Either way, I'd like to ask people to stop pretending that this game is any way on the same level as, say, an RPG like Mass Effect or a multiplayer game like Team Fortress 2.  In both those games I can stop playing at any time and come back whenever I want, and it's fine.  I can play an hour a week if that's all I have.  They ARE just video games.

WoW demands, demands you play a certain amount each week, and at a certain level further demands that you play at certain times.  If you refuse to comply you face the most certain punishment in any civilization: your friends and comrades will leave you behind.  It's easy to write this off if you're an antisocial person to begin with, but for most human beings this is a TERRIFYING prospect and they will do any insane shit to ensure it doesn't happen.

So no, it's not the same as a healthy hobby.  It can be enjoyed responsibly, but intentionally or not it's designed to get people hooked.

[Defenestration]

You must be familiar with Vanilla exclusively, Brentai. In the current loot distribution in Wrath, you can have a near complete set of ICC raid worthy tier 9 epic gear (when the current highest tier is 10) with infrequent play after a week from five man heroics with a fresh 80 and not a single friend on the server to get you into raids.

WoW doesn't demand anything timewise. You can even choose not to have your raid instance reset after one week like most, so if you don't want to have to reclear to the boss you got to but don't have time to go in with your buddies until Tuesday. The only thing that might correspond to what you're saying are achievements that can only be completed on holidays, and the rewards you gain from them are entirely cosmetic.

The game doesn't make demands of people's time. Guilds do. It's an important distinction.

[Classic]

I believe he does note that distinction, however briefly.

...play at certain times.  If you refuse to comply you face the most certain punishment in any civilization: your friends and comrades will leave you behind.

Perhaps Brentai is out of touch with an object of obsession he considers unhealthy, but I have no doubts that he could use his protestations as they are without significantly diminishing their merits.

EDIT:

Sorry. I read "Two Gentlemen of Lebowski".

[jsnlxndrlv]

The game doesn't make demands of people's time. Guilds do. It's an important distinction.

I think you're splitting hairs with this. The whole purpose of the MMO is the social aspect, which is the reason guilds exist. You might as well argue that DDR isn't responsible for injuries incurred by jumping around on a dance pad—sure, it may be possible to play by deliberately and sedately stepping on the buttons, but nothing about the game encourages this form of interaction over the other.

[Defenestration]

The thing is that, sure, there are plenty of horrible, awful guilds filled with shitty people and slave driver leadership. There are also a few good ones here and there that are filled with good people, and understanding leadership that won't give you a bitch out if your raid attendance drops below 80%. There are plenty of successful groups I know that have less than 4 raid days a week, in fact. Some of their members play WoW on some or all of those off nights where there is nothing scheduled, and some only show up for the raids and everything gets along fine. And If you're playing with people that aren't douchebags, nobody is going to be upset if you miss a night because you wanted to see a movie/take the missus out/had other obligations every now and then.

See, I love me some endgame. But I hold no delusions. The quality of your endgame experience is directly related to the quality of the people you play with.

[sei]

I'll go one further than Newbie.

Regularly accessing the latest content requires one of two things:
1) Being in a guild which is capable of clearing that content.
2) Setting up a schedule with other players, so that the group of scheduled-but-not-guilded players can make regular attempts at the content.

One can not generally assemble 25 people picked at somewhat random, take them to a "new" raid, and expect to make reasonable progress in it.

I intentionally specified "regular" access.  There are the odd lucky people (typically "significant others" or friends of people in a guild) who will get carried through content and get to experience it.  Getting to see Icecrown once would not necessarily require being in a guild.

People carried through a place from time to time get to experience the visuals of a zone, but given the existence and spread of loot drama, I'm wagering that players also have other motivations.  Satisfying these (OMG BEST IN SLOT) cravings is what locks players into #1 and #2 above.  Having to do via a primarily random reward delivery system (feral staff AGAIN!?) ensures it takes a good, long time.

There are several schedules of reinforcement that can be used in Operant Conditioning. The most basic is a fixed interval schedule, and the rat in the Skinner Box is rewarded every 5 minutes regardless of whether it presses the lever. Unsurprisingly, this method is not particularly effective. Another kind of reinforcement schedule is the fixed ratio schedule, and the rat is rewarded every time it presses the lever 5 times. This schedule is more effective than the fixed interval schedule. The most effective method is a random ratio schedule, and the rat is rewarded after it presses the lever a random number of times. Because the rat cannot predict precisely when it will be rewarded even though it knows it has to press the lever to get food, the rat presses the lever more consistently than in the other schedules.

There are plenty of successful groups I know that have less than 4 raid days a week, in fact.

This is ambiguous to the point of worthlessness because "successful" is vague (all "hard mode" content down?) and because it leaves out how many hours they raid on those days.  (E.g., 5 days a week for 3 hours is (15h total) is less raiding than 4 days a week for 4 hours (16 total)).

See, I love me some endgame. But I hold no delusions. The quality of your endgame experience is directly related to the quality of the people you play with.

...where quality is probably strongly correlated with how much time the people invest in the game, be it playing ("gear=skill" jokes aside) or reading up on fights.

[Detonator]

I need an Admin to split-merge or whatever the WoW derail into this exciting new thread.

DONE.  Hope it's still readable.

[Doom]

Removed my redundant post and threw the thread guideline into Alex's first post i.e. the thread's actual first post. Thanks a billion.

[Rico]

Well, 2 days of 3 hours a week was enough for Ulduar + all Uld. 10 hard modes, and ToC + all ToC10 hard modes.  ICC is going to skew the scale a little bit, but I think we did everything through Sindragosa in 2.5h.

I think pretty much any guild not gunning for a top 100 spot would call that successful.

This is also roughly equivalent to watching one sporting event of your choice with a bunch of other dudes and that one kind of manly chick you're always a little unsure of but hey it brings the good beer and fuck all these chumps bringing Coors.

[Rico]

The part I find most hilarious about the addiction analogies is that the game naturally devolves into a process that involves you logging on 2 hours a night three nights a week and never playing the game otherwise until you run out of things to do and inevitably cancel your account

I would suggest that the opposite here is that case.

No, Shinra is completely right in this regard, barring the actual, real addicts who will really play all hours of all days.  The game has even gone so far as to intentionally minimize the amount of time you can play for a reward, and disincentivize grinding by lessening the reward for repeatable dailies so that it is in no way worth it at all unless you are just gearing a freshly max-level character.

Much like the stereotypical Slashdot poster criticizing behaviors of Windows 98 when we're up to Windows 7 12 years later, almost every single problem with original World of Warcraft has been eliminated or minimized by later patches.

[sei]

I guess the question becomes whether, and how, WoW should support the hardcore players.

In theory, some people will spend no/less money on Blizzard's product unless it offers shit like hard-modes or other content that lets the biggest addicts/losers feel better than everyone else playing the game (and other MMOs competing with WoW).

So, how does Blizzard keep those people paying without accidentally turning more casual sorts into raid-zombies?

The fucking loot quality kind of killed 10-man raids for me.  That's a sad example of a kind of keeping-up-with-the-Joneses mentality. Still, putting "effort" into a raid to walk away with worse loot than people doing content with less personal accountability makes me feel worse than that Joneseseses business.

[McDohl]

Yeah, I was just trolling before, coupled with the fact that I didn't have much time to post.

But seriously, I don't want to retread old ground, so I will just say

*insert Brent's "being alienated by friends because of WoW" sentiments here*

I had friends who I would try to get to do things other than play WoW when I was in the Navy, such as go on trips to other places and so forth.  These efforts always fell through.  "Nah, man.  I've got a raid every Saturday this month all day long."  Jesus, there's a reason I consider you a friend.

[Detonator]

If I played WoW, it would be a good excuse to blow off friends I didn't like.