The MMO Issue

Well, it might not be an issue for most of you, but for me it is. Bear with me, if you will.

I play on that ever popular game called World of Warcraft. Yes, I’m one of those 8-9 million lunatics worldwide. It’s a good game. Let the detractors say what they will and the fanboys as well. It has many faults, but also many strengths and is very fun overall.

The issue I speak of is the second expansion for the game, Wrath of the Lich King. As did the first expansion, Burning Crusade, it has caused quite a bit of havoc and it hasn’t even been released yet. Probably won’t for 6-12 months, depending. Why havoc? Well, we have the sterling example of the first expansion to help detail that.

When Burning Crusade came out, it came out with a good list of additions. Ten more character levels, a whole new continent to explore, new items, new monsters, a new profession, new abilities, new instanced dungeons and two new races and other miscellanea.

Sounds pretty good, yeah? Well, I think so and still do. One of the biggest issues that it caused, however, is that the quality of the items you could get early in the first area of the expansion was quite high. Equal to or greater than that of some of the raid content(instanced dungeons for 40 players) in the initial game.

What this did was to get many of the raiders up in arms that non-raiders would so easily get geared up to their level. The opinion of many vocal types was that this invalidated all the time and effort they put into raiding to get the best gear in the game before the expansion hit.

To add to that was a change that lowered the max size of a raid instance to 25 players, rather than 40. The issue here was that most raid guilds were built around the 40 cap, thus many feared the unrest caused by some cutting several of their raiders would cause problems. Personally, I don’t know the extent to which this might have occurred. Back then, I was only casually raiding with an alliance of small guilds. I had some entry level raid gear and most of it was gone before I got halfway to the new level cap.

What did effect me was the first part, since the people in my alliance got lazy all of a sudden and we pretty much stopped raiding. I was a bit peeved at this because, despite the impending rise in solo quested gear, I wanted to keep raiding. Not for the gear, but for the experience. Blizzard makes some good content and I like to experience it.

So that brings us back to the present and the looming existence of Wrath. Again, they plan to raise the level cap by 10 levels. And again, they plan to have the gear do an uptic on the casual front. Raid sizes are remaining the same, but as many enjoyed the 10 man raid they put in, they seem to plan more of that(there’s already a new 10 and 25 man raid coming before the expansion).

And, as expected, with the news of Wrath comes those who would complain about what they’re getting. The issue itself. It’s amusing, really. Just this morning I read a bit of a thread started by someone who dislikes the raise in the level cap. They want a ‘completed’ character. On an MMORPG. Can one get more misguided than that?

And, of course, there are the raiders who will complain about the gear rise on the casual/solo level. I don’t know about anyone else, but I like upgrades. Yeah, Sooka my main has a lot of good gear on her right now. As you can see, I’ve gotten in with a good raiding guild now. Not too hardcore, not too casual. But I eagerly look forward to both continuing to raid right up to the release of Wrath and, once it’s released, scoring as many nice upgrades there as early as possible.

For me, the game is in the doing. Not just in the reward after. Sure, those purple texted epics are great. But what is better is the experience. Just last night Warcry downed Leotheras the Blind, second to last boss in Serpentshrine Caverns. After almost 4 hours of wipe after wipe, we managed to suck it up and keep it together long enough to outlast him. And quite a rush it is when you see that health percentage dwindle to 1%, you look at who is still up and you know that you’ve done it.

Another challenge met and surpassed, with more lovely gear to make those challenges just a little bit easier and prepare you for what is coming. The more epics we have, the easier it will be to level up in the new content, keep in mind. Nothing made that clearer than leveling up with Sooka in her low class epics during Burning Crusade and leveling my alts without raid gear later. Sooka breezed through early content, the others I had to work at it more.

It’s a curious thing when people will play a game, expecting other than what they should know it involves. World of Warcraft will never stop growing and changing until the last days when its popularity has waned and the customers have left it for bigger and better things. That’s the most amusing irony of all. In the end, everything we do in that game amounts to nothing. Sooka will eventually fade away and become nothing, simply because the game won’t last forever. But what I’ll always have are the memories of friends I’ve known on the game and challenges I’ve faced and surpassed.

That’s what really matters. Not your gear and not your ‘complete’ character. Too many don’t realize that, which is a sad thing as they’re only setting themselves up for disappointment.