I’ve finally decided to call it quits with the MMO.
My poison? World of Warcraft.
My reason? It’s a waste of time.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love video games and World of Warcraft is quite possibly the king. That said, I’ve been playing this game for YEARS. I spend hours upon hours running through the same quests over and over again – that is “kill X number of these” or “collect X number of these” so I can move on to kill bigger and badder things. Along the way I get spiffy looking visual upgrades and a monthly charge of $15.
In the mean time, all I’m doing is playing WoW. Blizzard has made it exceedingly difficult to do other things while playing. You can’t eliminate the tedium by using a bot (yes, this is cheating, but after creating my 8th character frankly I don’t want to do the same crap over and over again for weeks/months before I get to the good stuff). You can’t buy gold – well you can – but Blizzard’s enforcment is just plain random. I still haven’t ever bought gold, but if the option is there I should be able to throw Blizzard a few extra dollars and at least get a virtual loan.
I’ve been feeling this growing urge to give up on the MMO for months. Trying to re-inspire myself by creating new characters was a practice in futility. When it comes to video games I like to get immersed into something, accomplish the goals, then be done with it. While I’ve played hundreds of games, very few actually earn enough praise for a repeat performance. Still, I could likely throw in a game like Crackdown, GTA, or Forza and run through it to completion for the umteenth time and be satisfied.
With WoW, each time I started developing a new character – I just got more bored with the entire experience. Sure, there are new skills to learn and new bad guys to kill… But they’re pretty much the same bad guys I’ve killed before just with different names and colors. For lack of a better description, World of Warcraft is Super Mario Brothers, only it would literally take years to explore the entire game. I’m done. There’s a reason I couldn’t beat SMB until I was 18 and there’s a reason I’m quitting WoW… I want to pay for entertainment, not monotony. I want vivid, dynamic environments, I want a bloody machine gun. I want to be able to finish a game in a week or two, not still be trying to reach my maximum level for months if not years, all the while so bored with my current character that I waste more time trying to discover something else in that MMO world to excite me.
Blizzard has made a fortune off of its graphics and gameplay, and more power to them for it. They’ve got a formula that works, and some people probably don’t mind doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different experience.
Personally, I think it’s insane and I’m f**king done with it.
Anyone interested in my level 68 rogue along with its cabal of characters and fat bank account, drop me a line.