Wow...WoW?

As in World of Warcraft!

Now, I intended to make this blog primarily Warhammer, and it will remain as such, but I cannot help but interject some general MMO'ing in here.

So you know a little more about me as a gamer, I played World of Warcraft from Release up until about 8 months ago. I played fairly serious. Not in a raiding sense, but in a timesink sense. Over the three or four years of release, I leveled several classes to 70; Warrior, Druid, and Paladin. Rogue is almost there!

Out of curiosity, I ran over to www.wowhead.com to check out the latest patch notes. Besides a huge talent rewrite, can you guess what I saw as some highlights? Well, here they are!

-Implemented an Achievement system, where players can claim various rewards by unlocking achievements for in game accomplishments. What a unique idea!
-Implemented a Guild Calender in game! Genius!
-Oh yeah, guess what? Knockbacks have been implemented in a previously knockback-free game!

Now, I understand that games do evolve, and some great ideas become standard. I don't really begrudge Blizzard for stealing such obvious ideas from Mythic; after all, how many opened up WAR for the first time and said "Huh...looks just like WoW!"? My problem is that Blizzard Devs have the gall to just steal the ideas, implement them, then criticize Mythic's game and Devs blatantly! Here's a link you may enjoy reading, if you're into MMO gaming news;

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/10/16/world-of-warcraft-game-director-on-warhammer-online/

Sure, I know there's two sides to the story, but that sure as hell doesn't excuse battering WAR because of some personal disagreements.

In case anyone is wondering why I left WoW, it is simple; money. Not the money for a subscription, money for the expansions or anything like that, but money is, unfortunately, the focus of Blizzard.

I remember back in the day, Blizzard was so focused on making the best MMO there was they took ages to come out with WoW. Unfortunately for me, I found out about WoW shortly after it was announced, meaning I had quite a few years of torment while waiting for release. After many a year, this groundbreaking game hit the ground running.

I took my time leveling, enjoyed the years of play and updates. The something terrible happened; bloated from the money they had earned from WoW's release, Blizzard threw together the single worst expansion in the history of gaming! The Burning Crusade was hastily made and comprised mostly of rep grinds, money sinks, and an amalgam of other time sinks. On top of that, most items obtained from said sinks were "fluffy" items, meaning they only take time to get and are mostly useless.

The second problem was that the Expansion was so poorly designed in terms of itemization, it was no longer World of Warcraft, more World of EPICcraft! Gear dictated everything, which was most unfortunate.

Greed, greed, greed...That's all Blizzard represents these days. Why did a large amount of higher level staff leave the company to found their own company? See http://www.red5studios.com

WAR is a piece of art; the labor of love of many developers, their world manifested. It is rich in lore and history, complete with the TT game in all it's glory. I watched as Blizzard became corrupted by greed, time will tell if Mythic will follow the same path!

Cheers,
Papa Gwan