[…] Back in the day I did my 10 day World of Warcraft trial and blogged about it. If you recall, I was able to convince myself that WoW was not for me in the end. […]

Dude, wtf? Just go and download the free trial – there is no CD key necessary.

hi

give me wow 10 trial cdkey pz~~

my mail is jurchen.shin@gmail.com

Uh, oh… I sense tons of negativity here. I see both of your points. Personally I saw every single episode of Futurama 10 or 20 times, but I still watch it every time it is on TV and I still laugh at some of the jokes. Then again, I haven’t touched Guild Wars for years now because I just got bored with the repetition, despite the fact that unlike WoW it actually had a strong main quest storyline behind it. Go figure.

I think that what Steve meant to say that leveling is not really the intended target but it does become a fixation after a while because this is the part of the game that is your “reward”. It gets to the point where you are like “this is boring, but if I stay here and keep killing these things for few more minutes then I will level up and then I can finally do XYZ”.

On the other hand I think you are right vacri – obviously tons of people get a lot of entertainment value from this game. It wasn’t really for me so I stopped after the trial, but someone else can get hours and hours of fun just out of grinding. :P

An endless of progression of the same thing over and over cannot be enjoyable to all but the dimmest of people. It can’t possibly be enjoyable to do variations of the same thing ad nauseam

WTF? Are you human? Do you know any humans? People who watch repeats over and over again, people who read the same books by the same authors over and over, people who do the crossword/sudoku every single day, hell, even people who have sex the same way with the same person all the time?

Point is, if you’re enjoying it, then do it. If you’re not, then stop. Stop treating ‘max levelz0rz’ as the target and instead start treating it as ‘enjoying myself’. If you find it is a grind, then yes, stop doing it. What’s stupid is not being entertained by repetition, but wasting your leisure time doing something you hate to chase some goal you don’t want.

Ah, but there lies your problem (and many others’ as well). It’s not really about ‘getting to 70′, it’s about enjoying yourself (as is any game).

But therein lies your problem. An endless of progression of the same thing over and over cannot be enjoyable to all but the dimmest of people. It can’t possibly be enjoyable to do variations of the same thing ad nauseam…like Luke said, as you progress, it becomes a second, unpaid, job. See, a game is really only fun when it has an actual point. So, maybe I don’t get MMORPGs. I also don’t “get” Second Life either, but that doesn’t make it any less lame.

@Luke: Er…yeah…the DRM…um…ya…I bought the game, then downloaded a sweet crack…so I don’t have the DRM crap on my PC AND I don’t have to put the DVD in the drive every time I want to play. :)

But when I looked back I realized all I had accomplished was…well…to get to level 70.

Ah, but there lies your problem (and many others’ as well). It’s not really about ‘getting to 70’, it’s about enjoying yourself (as is any game). Just getting to 70 to say you’ve done it is pointless. If you’re not enjoying the ‘journey’ then yes, you are wasting your time. If you are enjoying the time you’re spending getting there, and doing the things you do once you are there, then fine, keep on playing. Besides, when it comes to MMORPGs, you need to let go of the idea that they’re supposed to be ‘finishable’.

The target isn’t ‘level 70 toon’, the target is ‘enjoying myself’.

@Alphast – my guess is that if you are paying a “per hour” fee you will closely monitor your game time – kinda like long distance call. Imagine what would happen if a parent found out they owe Blizzard $600 at the end of the month, because their son was playing 8 hours a day, every day or something like that? They would immediately cancel the account.

A flat monthly fee is more balanced and less scary to the customer. In fact people often forget to cancel their account for few months, or simply keep paying the fee “in case they want to get back into it in a week or two”. They get paid whether you play or not – so their income is much more predictable from month to month.

@Steve – I’d play BioShock but it will melt my puny computer with it’s unreasonable graphics prowess. Also, I hear that the DRM on that game requires you to sell your soul in order to play it and I kinda like my soul.

I loved this post! Brilliant observations, especially when you write:

Here is the deal – I don’t need another job. Getting up to level 70 is challenging and time consuming enough but it supposedly gets even worse from there on. Raiding is like a night shift job – you need to be on a schedule, you need to put up with juvenile assholes who do Leroy Jenkins and fuck up your shit.

That is EXACTLY my issue. I actually slogged my way through to level 70, only to find it doesn’t end. Which is the point, I guess. But when I looked back I realized all I had accomplished was…well…to get to level 70. All that’s left is to try to raid for nicer shit. Big whoop. And the people who have MORE than one level 70 toon…man…really?

I haven’t played in more than a week…I don’t think I will. :)

Playing Bioshock now :)

I actually don’t understand why MMORPG don’t have a pay per time scheme, instead of the either pay per month (WoW) or pay firsthand (GW). I think that the WoW scheme is a rip off (and sorry Matt, I don’t buy the film comparison, because it is not the same value for me). But I also think that the problem of GW (whose game mechanics and storyline I prefer) is that they can’t offer the same level of “entertainment”, as Matt put it, for the obviously lesser amount of money they get.