The End (My Friend)

Well, I thought this blog deserved a send-off of some kind--I really did have a lot of fun with it when I started it now over two years ago. That statement is shocking to me, in and of itself. It's kind of hard to believe that it's been that long just since then, and even moreso, that my time playing WoW spanned nearly six and a half years (!).

I admit, I will miss the old game--the one that began to die slowly with the release of Burning Crusade. Although it had its faults, BC was a fun and expansive addition to the original game. My excitement for Wrath of the Lich King, while still a rather manic excitement for the new features being released, was somewhat muted in comparison to the upcoming release of BC and refocused on somewhat different priorities. In retrospect, beginning with the announcement of WOTLK, my excitement for the new expansion was more towards the hope that it would "bring the magic back," so to speak, rather than the incredible number of new features, additions, tweaks, and so on that so excited me about BC's release.

Then, when Cataclysm was announced and the PR campaign began to ramp up to feverish intensity, I followed it all--but more and more, I began to feel reservations and doubts about the ability of the game to really deliver an epic, original-WoW style experience.

Sadly, it was overall a huge disappointment, at least for me. In their attempt to please every kind of player, Blizzard bit themselves in the ass with a mish-mash of annoyances, blatant attempts at harnessing addictive design elements simply to secure a daily time investment from all players (not just the "hardcore" elements), as well as increasing amounts of "social integration" that fueled the natural tendencies of habitual players to spend time on the game simply socializing, rather than actually playing the game itself. This meta-game style design path was the final nail in the coffin for me, I think.

The amount of drama, elitism, ego, shameless trolling and constant peer pressure to follow the crowd, rather than pursuing whatever personal goals and gameplay styles that each individual player preferred grew and thrived under the guise of "accessibility," "social gaming," "new gameplay mechanics," "guild management features" and a host of other new design decisions that grabbed the game by the hand and took it to corporate-themepark territory. You can literally almost pick out at random any of the major features added between the time just before the launch of WOTLK and early Cataclysm as an example linked to this trend. Over time, that growing trend simply pushed me away from the game (well, again). This time, however, it pushed me away for good.

I liked the unabashedly nerdy, "come as you are," skill-based meritocracy of the original game, with its nearly unlimited avenues of play and options for creative gameplay that it had for each and every kind of player, with the occasional "incredibly grindy but epicly rewarding quest or achievement," that appealed to the gamers with more time on their hands. The original game lacked polish, it's true--but I think that's what made so many people love it. It did the important things well, and focused on the minor issues only if they presented serious problems for the important ones. This is a good way to allocate development resources, and it was incredibly successful, both for the game's developers, subscription numbers, revenue and growth--but also for the players.

However, in Blizzard's rush to meet what I am sure were top-level management-set metrics and standards for subscriptions and revenue, WoW's development focus gradually, but surely, shifted to one based on popular opinion first and foremost. Get enough players to complain about one thing and (appear to) threaten subscriber numbers, and you could always expect an irresistible push from upper level management to appease the masses rather than risk corporate revenue streams. I believe the primary reason that was, and is, driving this top-down micro-designing (micromanagement of game design) was the marketing campaign that WoW was driven on. Subscriber numbers and revenue were largely the basis of that marketing campaign: "Most popular MMO ever!" "The only MMO to reach 10 million subscribers!" "WoW now more popular than ever!" This was surely because the game had little else to promote itself with, having already started to stagnate several years ago, and lacking the innovation that made it so compelling and unique among other games on the market--as I said, shortly after the release of Burning Crusade.

Perhaps you can see how this demagogue approach to development fits in to the more blatant social integration features that gradually became a core component of WoW's development towards the end of WOTLK.

These design decisions and development paths based on social media and blurring the line between "real life" and "in game" ended up killing WoW utterly. By now, that's apparent to most of the general public. It's only a matter of time now. The game I knew is dead and buried; its current incarnation is the walking dead. And yet, despite all that I said here, I am still a little sad to see it go. Despite how much of my time the game sucked up while I was in college and after I graduated, I really did enjoy it immensely for the majority of the time I was playing it. The game, as it was then, I could easily call one of the best games ever created. That is my opinion, but I feel pretty strongly about it.

Thus--this is my formal farewell to WoW. Drums and fanfare. I had stopped playing entirely around early February of this year, but I made the decision to cancel my account for good this past April, and it expired shortly after, only a month later. It is entirely too much to hope for, but I have to hope that at least a few development houses and game designers take some note and words of warning from the path Blizzard took--large game publishing conglomerates and corporate "suits" have been, and will be, threatening every "AAA" title that will be developed from now and into the near future. There is an axiom of game development that states, paraphrased, that you can either create a good game, or you can make a lot of money. There is some middle ground between the two, but in my simplistic terms, it comes down to either luck, or an extremely long design-development cycle (throughout which you will be harangued endlessly by all manner of people who have a stake in the game's release--financiers, fans, investors, and a host of others as well). Money will always be a strong lure for successful products, but once you walk that path, it's extremely difficult, if at all possible, to leave it.

Requiescat in Pace, WoW. And thanks to the few that have, or ever did, read my blog--I miss the days when reading the latest theorycrafting posts or role play stories were a fun daily activity for me. You all made the game much more special than any "Battle.net friend updates" could ever do, and it made me feel like part of the community to maintain my own slice of it here.

I just had to share this.

This is so ridiculous, and yet, so amazingly awesome.

New widget

I'm a little unreasonably proud of it, but I changed the default label widget to a more trendy cloud-type widget.

It's my first time playing with CSS/XHTML, but it wasn't too hard to figure out.

Woot. :)

I'm back

Rough time in the past month or so, but I made it out okay. Work, real life, etc.

I missed writing in this blog, but I simply could not think of anything to say that was worthwhile. I didn't really like the article I had been writing (part 1 of which is below) and I haven't been doing much in WoW besides levelling a mage, who just hit 80 yesterday.

I've been feeling very burnt out on raiding. I revisited this feeling when my mage hit 80 without me even realizing I was about to do so. I hadn't been paying attention, and it was quite surprising when the achievement and grats from the guild popped up, actually. A mere hour afterward, where usually I would be busy running instances repeatedly grinding for rep, badges, and gear, after a failed bid at Wintergrasp for a VoA run and two heroics--one of which failed miserably--I logged off and went to go play [prototype].

Perhaps it's because my 25-man guild recently dropped to 10-mans after repeated attendance problems crippled our 25-man progression runs, and I just cannot take 10 mans seriously enough to make a determined effort. I know I'm feeling a bit disenfranchised and bored with life at 80. Too often I get feelings of deja vu contemplating running dailies for the 24215345th time, or busting my ass grinding money for raids that are inevitably wipefests on bosses we've already cleared before, or levelling professions again, or starting another alt to do the same quests for the fifteenth time.

All right, I'll say it: WoW is definitely starting to lose my interest. A lot of people would squarely blame Blizzard for that, but in truth, it's as much me changing as the game. Here's what it really comes down to: I simply do not have the resources or inclination to sacrifice social life for the game at this point in my life, although I know I'd enjoy it all over again, at least for a while.

I had considered changing guilds to one that required attendance for raiding slots, but I realized that it wasn't just my schedule that I would be accommodating, but my wife's, and I wouldn't consider choosing to play WoW (raid or not) over spending time with her on any kind of permanent or semi-permanent basis. My wife's schedule is simply not set up for raiding with a new guild either, and finding a guild that will (A) end raids early enough for East Coast people with a 9-5 on a Mountain Time server, (B) take both of us, and not just one or the other, and (C) just happen to accomodate our both (reasonably full) weekday schedules while allowing for my occasional days of working late on top of that... well, let's just say, we were lucky to find the one that we're in now. A hardcore progression guild is simply out of the question, even with the recruiting frenzy going on.

Even if the stars aligned, we don't have the cred or the drive for a hardcore guild at the moment. So, changing guilds is definitely out.

And all of the above is completely disregarding the fact that both of us are reasonably attached to the people in our current guild at the moment.

Is anyone else (subscribers, followers [like i have any], random commentors, or google spiders) feeling burnout on WoW atm? Kyrilean has a post on it on his blog, but what about others? Can you deal with it? Somewhat recently I read the archives of one of the top guilds on Kel'thuzad--Pacifist--and their reasons for quitting in the midst of Burning Crusade (with an excellent and nostalgic retrospective by the members). Pacifist wasn't just one of the top guilds on Kel'thuzad, they were one of the top in the world, at a time when nobody really cared about world-firsts and shit except WoW players: in BWL/AQ40 and Naxx. And you know what? I liked it that way. I also keep remembering the reasons for the breakup of my old Horde guild on Thunderlord, also in the midst of BC, with whom I raiding with throughout pre-BC content, and all of these things seem to echo my feelings now.

I really don't want to quit yet. I'd be a fool not to see where I am headed though.

I really miss life at level 60. It was really the best time for the game.

Real life intervenes, again

Going to have to delay part 2 for now, as work is picking up more and more every day. I may have time for a post tomorrow or the day after if I'm lucky.

In my free minutes at work, I'm watching the Priest Q&A thread on the WoW forums as closely as I can. I wish they would allow RSS feeds for forum threads because I'd be all over that feature. Merlot over at Misery had some interesting questions for the developers to answer that I'm looking forward to seeing. Here's hoping they get to them.