World of Warcraft Discovered By Mainstream Media: “Like Second Life, But With Orcs”

OK, it’s not THAT bad. Quite a bit actually to hit on.

Two clueless mainstream news stories, take your pick. From Slate: World of Warcraft is lame, because it’s not more like Second Life.

The most obvious thing to add is customization. The MySpace generation expects a personalized experience, yet Warcraft’s avatars come in only a few stock models. The men are brawny, the women are lithe. Although you can choose the details, you can never change your look once you’ve made your initial decision\’e2\’80\rdblquote you can’t even get a new haircut. You can’t post a profile or write a bio and, unlike in online worlds like Second Life, you can’t own land or even rent your own space. Adding personalization would reinforce the game’s raison d’\'c3\’aatre: addictiveness. Plus, giving players an ownership stake and a unique-looking character would keep them coming back for more.

The writer goes on to explain that its story and gameplay is boring, too.

New wars should break out, cities should rise and fall, and all hell should break loose at least once a month\’e2\’80\rdblquote and the players should be the ones to make it happen. After all, in a world that never changes, you can never make your mark.

Oh, if only someone would make games like that. Why has no one ever thought of this.

And then, from a Canadian newspaper: Can one find romantic fulfillment in Stormwind?

World of Warcraft is the granddaddy of online communities. On one hand, it\’e2\’80\’99s a sprawling, seamless fantasy, where you choose an avatar \’e2\’80\rdblquote a rogue, fighter, Mage \’e2\’80\rdblquote and go forth in this virtual world to hack, slash and maim your way to glory.

On the other hand, it\’e2\’80\’99s supremely social. Players band together, chatting incessantly. They hook up for virtual drinks at the inn, share a slab of wild boar meat. They dance, they have picnics in the woods, they even share a bed on occasion.

But do they love?

That\’e2\’80\’99s exactly what I aimed to find out in my social experiment.

I hope I’m not spoiling anything when I reveal: it failed.

Speaking of failing, people who insist on running World of Warcraft on Linux using a Windows emulator are getting banz0red.

And the folks who make WoWGlider (the program most often used to bot World of Warcraft) are totally getting sued, and are totally suing back. In SPACE COURT.

  • http://www.raphkoster.com Raph

    The first article is interesting. It’s basically a plea for a worldy game. Nothing new, and the guy is clearly a gamer, so I put him in the jaded-with-Diku category. Not clueless — just disenchanted. Put it on f13 and up the bile quotient, and it would have fit fine.

    The comments thread is where it gets amusing, because he’s getting flamed to hell and back by WoW players calling him “n00b.” They offer up as examples of where he’s wrong PvP, raids, and the cap going up to 70 with BC, as signs that it’s not like he describes. But they come across to me anyway as missing his point altogether — and as people who are deep enough into WoW that they don’t see why talking about DPS, battlegrounds, and so on doesn’t answer his concerns.

  • Ibn

    It’s a good thing that the Slate author is taking the time to point out what Blizzard can be doing to improve WoW. With numbers being what they are, they really need to throw some seriously big new tech at the game if they want to stay viable. Maybe if Blizzard makes these improvements, we’ll see the population start to increase and the game will come back from the edge of being cancelled outright.

  • Nicademus

    I’m sure Raph and Garriot will be thrilled to learn that WoW is the grand daddy of all modern MMOGs.

  • Nicademus

    As an aside I assume Lum Online will allow for instantaneous hair cut reformulation, a new pony every week, and everyone will be allowed to rent a studio in a never ending sprawl of tenements.

    Oh and new wars should break out monthly with incredibly deep and complex back stories at least as long as a George RR Martin novel.

  • http://www.myspace.com/karaokecrew Formerly Fear Of BV

    “all hell should break loose at least once a month\’e2\’80\rdblquote and the players should be the ones to make it happen.”

    Didn’t we go through this excersize with UO? I thought the idea was not to interfere with the “majority’s” experience…

    For some odd reason it reminded me to ask Lum… er Scott… When is Dawn comming out anyway?

    A COMPANY IS AT STEAK! – I wonder how ole GL Jeff made out with that project.

    Sorry, I just needed a good laugh.

  • http://www.grimwell.com Grimwell

    “World of Warcraft is the granddaddy of online communities.”
    – as Nicademus noted, that quote combined with an iterative argument reduced the value of the article.

    Slate could have saved money and just linked to thousands of rants on the internet that say the same thing.

    Not that I don’t agree with the points (I’m a worldly nerd at the core), but it was just too over simplistic as a treatment.

    BTW, when did Slate become mainstream? It’s not.

  • http://www.virginworlds.com brent

    Scott, if I haven’t mentioned it lately, you are the king of the /snark and seeing you rant in person at AGC has made reading your entries here more of a riot as I imagine the implied inflection.

    This sentence with the links made my day:

    “Oh, if only someone would make games like that. Why has no one ever thought of this.”

  • http://www.thisisnotacommunity.org D-0ne

    I agree with Raph. The points in the article do stand up well.

    The folks running linux are probably guilty, no that is too weak, they were investigated and found to be guilty. I wish I didn’t need to say that.

    WowGlider? Buh-bye.

  • Serpilian

    Sorry Raph, maybe if you could escape your “I’m a designer, your a loser player” type of mindset, maybe I’d take you seriously. I read a bunch of the comments there and I have to agree with them. Maybe those other games don’t have the subscribers for a reason? So build the game you think is so awesome. You’re the developer, you have resources, don’t you? And don’t throw it back at me, I wasn’t being the presumptious one, saying how it should be done. :p

  • Riprend

    I still think there’s better ways to resolve cheating than to ban accounts. Jailing’s one possibility, but I think it’d be hilarious to, when you’re detected botting, have your avatar turned into a pink bunny for a week and only be able to hop around. No talking. Just hopping. Obviously they can automate this now, so it’d be easy to do and Blizzard could keep their 14.95/mo if they didn’t cancel.

  • http://www.edgecase.net/devsite Cael

    @Serpilian:

    Maybe if anyone cared about your opinion, that would work. Too bad nobody does.

  • blachawk

    WoW must be doing something right. It has what, 14 times the player base that UO and SWG combined had at their height of popularity? Raph’s design theories seem to make a lot of sense when you read them on a website and provide interesting material to think about while taking a dump; however, we’ve never seen them implemented (commercially) anywhere successfully. Britannia was definitely a world. A world of chaos with many game-breaking bugs. SWG was absolutely beautiful, too bad someone forgot to include a game that went along with the world. Raoh’s theories are interesting and thought provoking, but in the end I think people give him too much credit. Other than LegendMUD what great success does he have to put on his resume? Try explaining what a MUD is to an executive looking to hire someone to create the next WoW.

  • http://www.grimwell.com Grimwell

    Um… blackhawk…

    Were I the investors behind UO and SWG I’d consider the positive revenue return a ‘success’ by most means of measurement. Sure, not WoW — but that’s not success, that’s hyper success.

  • laiq

    blackhawk: McDonalds may sell lots of happy meals, but that don’t make it good food.

  • Aufero

    *shrug*

    There are successful markets for both kinds of games – in fact, for many different kinds of games. Not everyone has to have fun the same way. Criticizing a successful game designed around one philosophy for not being a game designed around another philosophy seems a bit pointless.

  • robusticus

    WowGlider on Lum’s blog?

    I once was involved early in paying to play a MUD and the developer said to me, proudly and excitedly, once, that he had built in system compensation for macro’ing. His anthem became “macro all you want”. So character reference wise – it isn’t a double standard.

    Also, those guys were lont time UO and Wing Commander customers.

    Y’know, since this is Space Court and all.

  • Xanthippe

    It looks like Blizzard hasn’t sued Wowglider but threatened to; in response to the threat, Wowglider is suing Blizzard. Although what for specifically, I don’t know. The ability to continue doing whatever they are doing? Looks bogus to me. People can file complaints against each other for anything, but that doesn’t mean the suit is going to go anywhere.

    The EULA is an agreement between WoW and the player. What legal rights does Blizzard have against third parties who create bots? Is the DMCA that specific?

  • Slyfeind

    Three years from now, people will say WoW was the first online game ever.

  • http://www.killtenrats.com Zubon

    As an aside I assume Lum Online will allow for instantaneous hair cut reformulation, a new pony every week, and everyone will be allowed to rent a studio in a never ending sprawl of tenements.

    My wife would totally play the game with the weekly pony update. The hair would just be a bonus at that point.

  • xzzy

    Considering my S.O. spends more time making characters in the Sims than actually playing the game, I think customizable hair would be a great way to destroy the already tiny female population.

    Granted, when they show up at the zone line they’ll turn every head, but you’ll have to put up with the snotty attitudes when two girls show up wearing the same robe.

  • Robin Kestrel

    The Slate article was a bit simplistic. Combat, particulary PvP combat, is a lot more than “if you are bigger you win, if you are smaller, better run”.

    However, the inability to customize your avatar really hurts WoW, particularly when everyone who isn’t wearing an epic set of armor looks like a mismatched multi-colored clown. At least in DAoC, I could make a decent-looking outfit with dyes.

  • Serpilian

    @Cael
    Obviously the “I am designer you are loser mindset” landed a little close to home.
    And what would work? I just suggested he go make his miracle game. That wasn’t even a humanoid response. Oh well. =P

  • bullet

    UO was an incredible success. 100,000 players… ten years ago… on dial-up! If EA hadn’t eaten them, Origin would still be a player in the industry that they, essentially, created.

  • Squeax

    I’d have to side with Serpilian on this one. Long, long time ago I’d take any word from a DesignerDragon as gospel. Not anymore. I believe, the last drop to change my attitude was when Holocron declared on SWG Beta forum that “Grind is a state of mind”.

  • http://jpsaunders.co.uk Ghiest

    “However, the inability to customize your avatar really hurts WoW, particularly when everyone who isn\’e2\’80\’99t wearing an epic set of armor looks like a mismatched multi-colored clown. At least in DAoC, I could make a decent-looking outfit with dyes.”

    I completely agree, Dyes in wow would give another angle to the game. It’s suprising the amount of people don’t pick up a certain item (even raiders in my guild) because it’s ugly or just doesn’t fit in with their current suit of gear (we aint Mc raiders either … cleared 3/4 naxx already).

    As for those who got banned for supposedly using, there is an official response on the WoW boards denying it is soley down to the linux port, after beign a CSR in eq the majority of people who cheat and get caught/banned will scream and shout they are innocent to anyone who will listen, and the amount of different excuses I have heard could fill a few books.

  • http://jpsaunders.co.uk Ghiest
  • Ian

    Yea, I picked the right time to bail. Once the mainstream enters virtual worlds they fuck it up as fast as they can.

    “You’ve ruined your own lands, you’ll not ruin mine!”

    Oh lesser_orc00, how you mock me with your wisdom.

  • http://www.virginworlds.com brent

    A closer look reveals that this guy may just not like MMOs, but he isn’t really wrong:

    http://www.virginworlds.com/pg.php?n=4518