WOW WoW!!!

[x-dANGEr]

I'm just stunned by the number of people WoW has drawn, and actually addicted into itself..

Just a quick question: Does anyone has anyidea how much money did WoW bring back to the releasers?

[tibilicus]

Argh world of warcraft.. Argh!

[TB666]

Just a quick question: Does anyone has anyidea how much money did WoW bring back to the releasers?

Mean Blizzard ??
I would guess alot.
And to tell you the truth, I'm addicted too
It is alot of fun.

[Lehesu]

More of a Guild Wars person myself. No monthly fees is nice, and the games doesn't contrive to make you have to play every day to get "leet" items.

[x-dANGEr]

I think this game should be listed beside addictive alcohols, etc.. Why? Man.. It is addictive!!! A lot of my friends actually don't see the sunlight anymore because of it, which is by the way the reason I haven't played it, even for once. For I am really not a fan of being addicted.. !!!

[Spino]

More like World of Warcrack...

Hi, my name is Spino and I am a recovering Wowaholic...

WoW claimed the better part of 10 months of my life until I recently went cold turkey. It so completely dominated my gaming time that I hardly played anything else, even my beloved wargames and combat shooters & sims. The funny thing is even though I realized early on that WoW was all about the accumulation of 'loot' packaged in mindlessly repetitive gameplay I couldn't help myself but keep playing. So as to define the term 'mindlessly repetitive' here's a typical example of quest progression in WoW:

Dorkus: Hail Jerky, bring me a green shrubbery!

Dorkus: Well done Jerky! Here's a few silver pieces as a reward and some XP. Now go forth and bring me 4 brown shrubberies!

Dorkus: Oh my, very impressive Jerky! Here's some more silver and XP! Now if you bring me 10 yellow shrubberies, a Superior Funk potion and a pair of soiled panties from the Witch of Slutovia who lives somewhere in Bowel Wind Canyon I'll give you one of these not-so-hot items you probably won't use along with more money and more XP!

Wash, rinse, repeat. Sounds silly but I'm being completely serious. There are very few quests in WoW that are truly memorable and fun to do. The overwhelming majority of quests require that you engage in mindless repetition by killing or harvesting x number of mobs (monsters) and mats.

Initially it was the sheer size and scope of WoW's gameworld that sucked me in and kept me playing into the wee hours of the night; there's an awful lot to see and do and it takes a long time to do it. Once my passion for exploration peaked and the thrill of raiding endgame instances began to wear off I found a new reason not to quit; I dove headfirst into the Battlegrounds (multiplayer combat) which (arguably) offers a less frustrating alternative to raiding by giving players a more direct path to excellent loot via rank and reputation progression. The Battlegrounds are damn fun but I eventually reached critical mass and couldn't stand the thought of devoting another minute to playing WoW.

When it comes down to it WoW simply doesn't offer much for level 60 characters to do other than farm, engage in the monotony of raiding the same dungeons over and over and try your hand at the Battlegrounds. Furthermore once you reach level 55 or so and join a guild that raids endgame instances (dungeons) regularly the time you are expected to log in and play per week actually goes up; no more playing on your own time like you did when your character was way too weak to go on endgame raids. It got to the point where I had to devote at least 10-15 hours of my night life every week (mainly weekends) just to be present for our scheduled raids and an additional 10+ hours for the Battlegrounds in order to progress in the ranks. This is the single worst part about playing WoW (and I suppose the most frightening aspect of mmorpgs), the virtual disappearance of a normal social life which eventually becomes replaced by the social interaction with other players in the game. This isn't too bad depending on whom you're socializing with but talking endlessly about the game (as many WoW players are prone to do) can grow old really quick.

When I announced to my guild I was quitting WoW I was shocked at how many people were actually happy for me and were seemingly jealous of my ability to quit WoW altogether. It seems lots of people look upon WoW as a regrettable addiction that is awfully hard to quit. Leaving my guild was the worst part about quitting WoW. I lucked into a great guild filled with a great bunch of people, most of whom took a healthier, casual approach to WoW and made the motony of endgame raiding a pleasurable experience.

I will say that based upon the design and gameplay of WoW I would be all over a massive single player rpg (no, NOT like Diablo, blech) if Blizzard ever decided to go in that direction. A WoW sized game world combined with real depth, the ability to actually affect the world events and a meaningful, overarching plot would be fantastic.

Geez, sorry about the long post. It felt good getting that off my chest though. If I can save just one person from the evils of WoW...

[Fragony]

I am staying as far from MMRPG's as possible, I don't want to become a zombie.

[x-dANGEr]

Just one note Spino. I think your account is worth loads of real money, so you should sell it:


http://www.rpgdot.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2201230

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Will people pay real dollars for in-game virtual money to help their virtual characters buy in-game goods?
One gamer, who goes by the screen name Haylo, said he spent $10 to $20 real dollars a month on in-game platinum(all nonexistent, of course) to buy weapons and other goods in Dark Age of Camelot (DAOC), but would spend more if he could afford it.
Most video games have some form of currency. In many ways, the in-game economy is similar to a real world economy - goods and services are traded to mutual advantage and are mediated in currency (platinum, gold,credit,etc.). With all the things you can buy in game, a gamer said, it's hard not to want them, just like real-life stuff.

The average Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game(MMORPG) player is 27-year-old -- a demographic drooled over by marketers. Plus, nearly half of all players have jobs, which often means they have more money than time and are the perfect consumers of virtual assets. On the Internet, many gamers now buy virtual money that only exist as data files stored in a server run by a game company with real-world dollars, and the buying and selling of virtual currencies may be off most people's radar, but it is truly big business.

An online broker, who goes by the screen name Rolala, was not a fan of online games until his 15-year-old son became interested in Final Fantasy XI. He then noticed that a large number of gils which are the currencies used in FFXI were for sale on eBay. I started hearing about players leaving the game who were selling their assets at cheap prices, he said, so I figured, buy low, sell high.

But Rolala found his moneymaking options in FFXI very limited. He switched to World of Warcraft. There, he has leveraged his real-life experience into an online business. He converts his game profits into real money on sites like eBay ,cheapwowgold
,and 5mwowgold etc. Earnings can be considerable. He said he was on track to earn about $120,000 in real money in his first year in this business.

Rolala's business is just one example of how increasingly popular online role-playing games have created a shadow economy in which the lines between the real world and the virtual world are getting blurred.

World of Warcraft, the world's largest MMORPG, boasts more than 1 million paying users in North America.There are many sites like wow gold free strategics, teaching gamers how to earn wow gold in
game for free, however many players are still willing to buy gold and weapons to help their virtual characters get a higher virtual status more rapidly. Some virtual goods in World of Warcraft have been sold for thousands of dollars. It obviously creates a large real world market.

Edward Castronova, an economics professor at Indiana University who has written a book on the subject, calculated that if you took the real dollars spent within EverQuest as an index, its game world, called Norrath, would be the 77th richest nation on the planet, while annual player earnings surpass those of citizens of Bulgaria, India or China.

Go to GameUSD, an exchange-rate calculator for the virtual worlds, and do a search for the latest rates of virtual currencies against the U.S. dollar, and let your jaw drop open. The rates of some virtual world currencies are even better than that of the Iraqi Dinar! For instance, here is the recent exchange rate of several popular virtual currencies:
Everquest Plat ($0.54/1K), EQ2
Gold ($0.17/gold), WOW Gold ( World of Warcraft Gold ) ($0.098/gold), SWG Credit ($4.40/1M), Lineage 2 adena ($2.80/1M), Guild Wars Gold ($0.12/1K), FFXI Gil ($17.89/1M), etc.

Right now, this business is one of the most hotly debated issues on the internet. Many game companies such as Blizzard who run World of Warcraft discourage profit from in-game properties, though none have found a way to stop it.
Sony Online Entertainment, on the other hand, encourages the practice (albeit within the confines of their own Station Exchange, their own forum for the sale of in-game properties). It recently announced the first month's figures from Station Exchange. According to SOE, over 45,000 characters from ;EverQuest 2 have been active on the exchange and have spent over $180,000 USD in one month, half of which have been spent on in-game gold and platinum.
Despite of different attitudes towards virtual currency trade, the number of people who are getting into such business is rising, and the size of market has been expanding very rapidly.The market also creates a competitive environment. We could refer to sites like GameShopList, a price comparison site, to see the fierce price competition between different exchange sites.

For some ordinary gamers, however, such a capitalist approach spoils the experience. Nick Yee, a psychology researcher from Stanford University, believes many players dislike virtual currency traders because, by using real wealth to buy virtual power, they're breaking the fantasy-reality bubble, getting an advantage in a way that other players can't.

According to a recent survey by IGN, an internet media focused on the videogame markets, most gamers say they dislike and avoid this business, believing that it gives players with more discretionary income an unfair advantage.
But such attitudes are called into question by size estimates for the virtual asset trading market, which is seen having a value of $200 million to nearly $900 million in 2005.

One potential explanation for the disconnection between attitudes and money spent may be that gamers are unwilling to admit they use the services, IGN said.

In terms of the law's concern, another issue is, who owns the virtual money? Many virtual world designers maintain that anything created in the world belong to the company. They refuse to recognise the rights of their players in the virtual property for fear of attracting liability for its maintenance or security.

But will this work in the long term? Players spend considerable time and/or money acquiring such assets. In many cases they are the creation of the player and even the intellectual property ownership is questionable. As we spend more time in these worlds, it's not enough for companies to say that 'we own everything and we can turn it off at any time,' said a gamer. The question may soon be should we have recourse against a game company for obliterating virtual assets?

With the rapid growth of virtual currency exchange market, should people accord virtual property the same protection as property in the real world?

[Spino]

One persons "Mindlessly Repetitive" is another persons.. well..Mindlessly Fun ;)

I really, really enjoyed the WoW Open Beta back when, and have been meaning to buy myself a copy when I upgrade my PC. Heck, I still play Diablo II ;)

I'm not saying WoW wasn't fun. It was fun for quite some time until I began to miss rpgs with more depth, story and less repetition. The massive drain of my time in exchange for nothing more than some fancy loot, rank & rep is what pushed me over the edge.

Just one note Spino. I think your account is worth loads of real money, so you should sell it:

http://www.rpgdot.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2201230

Way ahead of you x-Danger, I have already taken inventory of my characters and took the necessary screenshots for an Ebay auction. Now I just need to get off my lazy bum and post the auction on Ebay. I can circumvent Ebay's policy of occassionally cancelling WoW account auctions by simply selling the game at a marked up price and throwing in my account for 'free'. I only wish my main character had more 'epic' items so as to increase demand. On the other hand my main is a warlock so there isn't too much competition from other auctions (warlocks are one of the least played and one of the most powerful classes in the game).

But geez, according to that article that one guy is on track to earn $120K per year just farming gold on WoW?!? That's insane. I wonder how many hours he puts in per week? It almost makes me want to keep my account and give it a try. Hell, if I could make an extra $20-30K per year just from playing that game a few hours a week it might be worth the effort.

[x-dANGEr]

Which gets us back to the saying "Everything has a good and a bad side"..

[Boohugh]

Yes, I'm a WoW addict. I lasted a month and a half before I started playing again after going cold turkey. My guild uses Teamspeak, so we can actually chat about random stuff and not just about WoW, which I think helps take some of the boredom of grinding the same things over and over away. It does take up a large chunk of my free time, but I'd probably just be playing other games instead if it wasn't for WoW. We're also a pretty high-end guild so we'e constantly tackling new bosses which helps spice things up.

And finally, as one of the tips on the loading screen says:

Take all things in moderation, including World of Warcraft

[Dorkus]

Spino, excellent post, and a good reminder to me of why i have never taken up mmorpgs (have thought about it recently, given the dearth of good pc games).

but why bring me into this!?!?

[Navaros]

One persons "Mindlessly Repetitive" is another persons.. well..Mindlessly Fun ;)

That's the problem with all video games though. Eventually they become mindlessly repetitive no matter what. No game's content lasts forever, and once you expend all the fun out of the content, only mindless repetition remains. Even "mindlessly fun" will eventually morph into "mindlessly repetitive" sooner or later.

[Geoffrey S]

But mmorpgs such as Warcraft count on prolonging that repetition for as long as possible, hopefully into infinity, whereas regular (single player) games have a finite length and usually have a fixed end point and require less dedication. It makes the repetition stand out far more in an online game.

[UglyandHasty]

Nice post Spino. Reading you make me glad i didnt buy WoW. I feared i wouldnt be able to control myself with a game like this... Good for you you manage to get of it. Well done

[x-dANGEr]

But mmorpgs such as Warcraft count on prolonging that repetition for as long as possible, hopefully into infinity, whereas regular (single player) games have a finite length and usually have a fixed end point and require less dedication. It makes the repetition stand out far more in an online game.

Believe me.. With all the mods around RTW, it's SP can last lo0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oOOOo0oo0oO0o0o- ng !

[stalin]

http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/gaybar.html

[Muneyoshi]

Shadow Moon represent. Muneyoshi 60 Dwarf Warrior.

[Meneldil]

Oddly, while being one of the most successful MMORPG available atm, it is also the most boring and most repetitive one.

I used to be addicted (lasted a few months), until I understood that killing mobs endlessly to get some overpowered weapon (that was already owned by 80% of the players) wasn't that funny. The game offers nothing but boring PvE, and it's also full of 12 year old people who spend their time bitching and taunting (omg u rly suxx dude, zis sword is 4 hunter)

And yeah, most of blizzard workers must now own half a dozen ferraris thanks to WoW.

[TB666]

Well on my server leet speak is very rare.
Of course I play on a RP server where things like that are not allowed.

[Nelson]

Blizzard has certainly hit the jackpot. The mother lode. The big enchilada. They figured out how to transform the “loot lust” of Diablo into an endless loot chase that brings them $15 a month from millions of people. THAT was real magic.

I’ve played WoW for just over a year now. My sons got into it and they brought me in. I have enjoyed it because the world is so big and beautiful and there is so much to do in it. The game does indeed change at level 60. If raiding the same instances repeatedly isn’t fun (it isn’t for me) or grinding rank or faction in Battle Grounds is too boring (as both are for me), you can always start an alt. Learning new classes has been fun for us.

Last winter my paid time ran out unexpectedly. After a shocking pang of disappointment that I would not have predicted, I had an epiphany. WoW had become important to me. I didn’t want it to be so important that I needed it and I wasn’t certain that I didn’t need it. So despite not saying adios to my guild mates I decided to take the opportunity to quit for a while. For a few days I found myself wondering what was happening in Orgrimar. What great deals did I miss in the auction house? How many gems did I not mine today? I became determined not to go back until I knew that I could do without it.

After 6 weeks I did go back. I enjoyed it and I missed it. I had never planned my RL schedule around WoW. I never got into raiding on Friday and Saturday nights in the first place because there is inevitably a concert or dinner party or movie or some such event I’d rather do, in large part because when I last formed a real addiction 26 years ago I married her. So long as the boys and I enjoy partying up and blazing our way across Azeroth once in a while I will remain a subscriber.

[x-dANGEr]

And yeah, most of blizzard workers must now own half a dozen ferraris thanks to WoW.

I think you mean 2..

@Nelson: Don't you think being excited in a game "that" much is wrong?

[Abokasee]

The .org must destroy it's self before the moderaters of the .org create a new World of Warcraft section to the website







(I cant till warhammer age of reckoning is released)

[Reverend Joe]

I just happened to peek at the screenshots for this game...

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/sc...ndex=709&Set=0

People are getting addicted to... that?!

[x-dANGEr]

I just happened to peek at the screenshots for this game...

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/sc...ndex=709&Set=0

People are getting addicted to... that?!

You don't like THAT?

[TB666]

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/sc...ndex=709&Set=0

Gnomes for the win.

[Lehesu]

More of a GW fan myself. Strangely, Guild Wars isn't really that addictive.

[Kraxis]

But geez, according to that article that one guy is on track to earn $120K per year just farming gold on WoW?!? That's insane. I wonder how many hours he puts in per week? It almost makes me want to keep my account and give it a try. Hell, if I could make an extra $20-30K per year just from playing that game a few hours a week it might be worth the effort.

Heh... I have heard of Asian conglomerates, where they hire real life persons to just farm cash for them, which they then sell at a profit. They are supposedly making loads.
I would not be suprised if this guy was running such 'sweatshops'.

There have even been cases of pressgangs and enforcers beating up employees that have sold their money thenselves (apparently that is how they keep them inline). Crazy stuff...

[Hepcat]

My younger brother is definitely addicted to it. In fact my two younger brothers have huge scraps over who will use it. I think it is a waste of money though I can see such a view is not a popular one.

Maybe I am just an old fashioned gamer who prefers to only buy the game and not waste money on a subscription.

[BDC]

My brother played it religiously until my Mum changed to that new BT thing that's being advertised atm. Now it cuts out too much for him to play it!