When I arrived at work today, there was a copy of Burning Crusade on my desk. That’s a little like coming home and finding a dead puppy on your doorstep. It’s horrible and disgusting and when I find the person responsible I will initiate hurting. If you hate me, just send me an unrefrigerated corpse with postage due, so I’m doubly insulted by having to pay money for receipt of a rotting person. Or man up and take the direct approach by punching me repeatedly in the kidneys, maybe? Either way, I’ll get the message. But making hostile overtures toward my free time? That I can’t forgive.
Good thing I have a high natural resistance vs. MMO. Saving throw: successful. Nice try, Blizzard, but it looks like I get to keep my girlfriend.
Good for you, man. I mean that.
Haha. My gf decided she was taking a break from WoW because she was having personal problems with the guild leader. So its long, pointless and filled with interpersonal struggle. Score! So fun….. I rather make custom made GWAR characters in a brutal game like Mortal Kombat Armageddon then play a MMO
Sharkey took photos of me gingerly picking up the Burning Crusade box with a paper towel, as if it were some sort of West Nile-afflicted dead bird, but it turned out to be much more amusing in concept than in fact. Alas, what could have been.
What could have been a whole different universe for you to explore, is now rubbish in your outgoing files. You’re missing out, but I can understand if you’re comfortable “at home” and don’t want to brave the dangers of exploring the wilderness of an MMO.
I’m just kidding, don’t play WoW. Even if you survive, you won’t be quite the same or rather you’ll be exactly the same since you started playing it’s just everything else change around you (Rip Van Winkle effect). Not to mention you’ll be ridiculed for not being “hardcore” by the jobless virgins who grind through quests and mobs in their zombie-like trance. You can’t beat the game, the game beats you.
Special power: Immunity to world’s most interesting bomb.
Or you might just get bored with it after you hit level fifteen or so.
Be happy. Everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) around me has been reeled in by World of Warcraft, and my entire internet presence the last few days has been putting up with insufferable fools trying to relate to me how “fucking awesome” The Burning Crusade is. I hate you, Blizzard.
Has anyone died from playing WoW yet? I mean in the Korean not getting up to eat, sleep, or relieve yourself because your compulsion won’t let you leave sort of way
The only massive online I like is Mapple Story, and only because the Wonder Boy/Metroidvania elements in it. It is like Wonder Boy Online and that can definetly not be completely bad.
I kinda wish there were more new Wonder Boys than new Castlevanias, but, whatever.
Hey man I agree with you 100%, I won’t touch MMO games with a ten-foot-pole. Only because of the stories I heard about how it will consume your life. At least with single-player games you have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and then you can move on to the next game. With MMOs it’s just a non-stop experience with no end in sight. Somehow the game immersion ‘fantasy’ is lost when there are thousands of other real-life humans sharing it with you.
Me, over IM to a WoW player I know: “So, Cyclone now removes two buffs. Is this really so earth-shatteringly amazing that the people sitting behind me at work can talk about it for TWO CONSECUTIVE HOURS?”
Him: “Cyclone debuffs now? No shit?”
Me: *groan*
I like MMOs because they keep my roommate in his room, so I can keep my social interaction with him to a minimum.
I heard the sounds of Burning Crusade coming from our managing editor’s office yesterday and went in to check on him. He hadn’t shaved in at least three days.
The sad thing is that WoW is supposed to be the MMO you can pick up and play in small spurts unlike other, more ‘hardcore’, MMOs like FFXI or pretty much every Koran MMO.
But seriously I can’t imagine being in a conversation where you do nothing but discuss an MMO for hours. Hell, after about 5 minutes, I get shamefully embarrassed and shut up.
I play WoW. :`(
Also it is in fact possible to play WoW for shortish spurts and not have hygiene issues or anything like that. Just BTW.
Go take a shower, stinky!
Aw, don’t make that sad face. You know I tease because I love.
(From upwind.)
It STARTS as a casual game you can play in chunks. Blizzard’s strategy is to use that to hook you and turn you into a hardcore raider. (Wish I could find the interview where they said that. It was on the official page.)
I know it brings in the subscription cash, but I wish Blizzard hadn’t done that.
I’m sorry, what? An MMO you don’t have to spend all your life on? That game DOES NOT EXIST. And Blizzard didn’t MAKE that game and then ADD raiding to it later. They said “Oh it’s totally not life consuming” so that you would play it, and then have your life consumed.
*sobs*
*showers*
I used to play wow. I have a level 60 paladin with banana armor and everything. But, ehn.
Just for certainty’s sake, is there a difference between jparish and parish? Which is the real ToastyFrog? Guys, I think there’s an evil twin among us.
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
I realized today that WoW players are to regular gamers as regular gamers are to everyone else. Nongamers don’t know when new consoles are launching or what they do until they’re all over the news, and regular gamers didn’t know when the WoW expansion was launching or what was in it until it was all over the gaming news. Nongamers can’t understand why anyone would line up to buy a console at midnight, and normal gamers can’t understand why anyone would line up to buy an MMO expansion at midnight. Nongamers are bored and confused by gamer talk, and my mind starts to wander the minute I hear the word “debuff.” The parallels are really quite fascinating.
Basically, it’s a slum within a ghetto.
Pfft..I am a normal gamer, and I still can’t see why anyone would line up to buy a console at midnight, let alone an expansion pack at midnight. The longest I’ve ever waited in line for a game was a half hour when LOZ: Wind Waker came out.
What I mean is, from levels 1 to 35, the emphasis of the game is on focused questing. You don’t have to spend much time traveling and most quests are solo-able and you can play for an hour a couple times a week and feel like you got a lot done. Five-man dungeons are available for phat loot, but you can pretty much cruise through the levels by yourself, with the occasional pickup group.
Around level 40, the emphasis shifts to the five-man dungeons. The solo player will find his quest log filled with dungeon quests and missing much outdoor solo stuff to do. The dungeons can be finished in under an hour… with a well-trained group that has run the dungeon before. Pickup groups of casual players will probably find themselves spending hours and hours on a single dungeon run. Some dungeons, like Uldaman, are also nigh-impossible to complete with a pickup group that hasn’t at least read a strategy guide or have a veteran member to tell everyone else “right” way to beat the boss.
It was interesting to see this shift in design philosophy during the beta, as new areas were incrementally finished and added. It culminated in things like Molten Core, where the challenge is more in the logistics of organizing and commanding 40 people across the country to even all show up on time.
I played the raid game for a while, and it was fun in its own right overcoming those kinds of challenges. But the sheer amount of time required just doesn’t fit into a 9-to-5-job lifestyle.
It’s not impossible to an MMO that won’t take over your life. In fact, I think City of Villains has accomplished this quite well. From what I’ve heard, Blizzard has steered away from the raid game somewhat with Burning Crusade, with shorter quests and dungeons that you can finish without burning a whole Saturday evening. If so, good for them. I’m going to wait and see, though.