Do you not play WOW? Forked Thread: Wil Wheaton plays and reviews 4th.

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Forked from: Wil Wheaton plays and reviews 4th.



...that so many people play WoW. Seriously. I've looked at it back when and didn't like it. In fact I hated it. I don't like online or computer RPGs at all for that matter. For me, the personal interaction is the thing: bad jokes, gut-wracking munchies and everything.

Am I the relative man in the wilderness on this?

I don't like games like WoW, for many reasons. Personally I think it (and the Diablo series) are just Angband with prettier graphics and more complicated gameplay. I never liked Angband; as long as WoW has "gear check" raid encounters I will never consider playing it.

Of course, there's other issues with lore, etc.

There are about 11.5 million WoW players. The total number of people who have played is higher (MMOs generally keep players for several months to a year, IIRC). Still, that means there are billions of people who haven't played WoW.

There's a player in my gruop who plays WoW. He says "this is just like WoW" to annoy me a lot, but most of the time it's about a positive (IMO) aspect of 4e. I wouldn't expect WoW to be all-good or all-bad.

 

[NewJeffCT]

I don't play WoW, because I'm afraid I'd like it and get addicted to it... and not be able to stop playing. And, then not put enough time into the D&D game I'm currently running.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I don't play WoW because I've seen the same thing happening with my friends who play it that happened with them when we played Everquest.

They have become people who can only cease talking about WoW for a very short period of time.

Which is to say, when they are into these MMO's, they become those terrible gamers at parties who can't shut up about their characters.

It's more about a common reference point. My brother is into various martial arts, has his son in tae kwon do. Most of our conversations involve me ignoring him telling me about this or his ex-wife's latest antics.

By extension, you probably also do the same with some topic that takes up your time, and you just don't realize it.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I like WoW. But no way in hell do I want my tabletop game to be anything remotely like WoW. Its apples and oranges.

My D&D group is all either current or former WoW players, and we see how they added "WoWisms" to 4e. For the most part, we don't like 4e. (Though, I think it has as much to do with the chat-based format we've used for 10 years making dungeon crawls painfully boring, especially when 4e combats crawl so bad.)

 

[pogre]

I don't play WoW, because I'm afraid I'd like it and get addicted to it... and not be able to stop playing. And, then not put enough time into the D&D game I'm currently running.

Yep, that's me as well. I want to continue writing and painting and working on other stuff. I know my limitations - WoW would quickly take over what little free time I have.

 

[Korgoth]

I lost three good friends to WoW. One I could converse for hours with about D&D, Doctor Who, comic books, Star Wars, and a plethora of geeky-things.

Now?

"Did you see last week's Clone Wars? Man it was great!"

"Nah, we had a raid that night. I got the level 75 shoulder armor!"

"..."

Oy. I know what you mean. I have a couple of friends (married) who have gotten this way with Age of Conan. During regular tabletop gaming, practically anything can get digressed into "Just like Crakus the Nemedian. 'Get me the Emerald Spear so I can get these Winged Apes off my lawn! LOL!"

While I sit there not getting it, of course, because I have invested 0 hours of my life in that MMO and you probably have to invest like 200 to get the joke.

Then of course everything in the game gets translated into MMOspeak. Someone gains a level and they do a silly sound and gesture. It's not irritating so much as... odd? Like how a goldfish would feel if you tried to explain vocal counterpoint to it.

Anyway... I played WoW for a few months. I found it a bit "meh" really. After the novelty of having a musket-bearing dwarf with a pet bear wore off (sooner than you might think), there wasn't really a whole lot there. Kind of like the excitement value of 4 videogames stretched out over the length of 178 videogames.

 

[Set]

Geeks like to geek out whenever possible, even if it's only talking about it. It happens whether your geek fetish is D&D, WoW, model airplanes, disco music, or existentialism.

Let's not forget the geekiest geeks of them all, the ones who dress up in their favorite character's jersey, paint their faces and memorize statistics and averages for the past 30 years of the sports teams that the obsessively love.

Don't *even* get New England guys into a conversation about the Patriots. The words 'spygate' or 'Tom Brady' or 'Bill Bellichek' will start a conversation that will last for hours, and include the creepiest, stalkeriest, mind-numbingest minutiae you can imagine...

 

[Mean Eyed Cat]

For me, the personal interaction is the thing: bad jokes, gut-wracking munchies and everything.

Am I the relative man in the wilderness on this?

I'm right there with ya. I also don't play any online or computer games. I really like the social interaction that tabletop rpgs promote. Plus, I don't have the time to play games on the computer. I know that if I started playing WoW or some other online game, I would get sucked right in and my wife would have to form an intervention.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

I don't play any MMO games. One of two things would happen - either I would hate it, and feel like I wasted my money....

or...

I would love it and spend way to much time there - I am something of an obsessive/compuslive (I collect RPG books, and spend way too much time on characters with normal RPG stuff) and get into trouble.

So I just avoid them.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Let's not forget the geekiest geeks of them all, the ones who dress up in their favorite character's jersey, paint their faces and memorize statistics and averages for the past 30 years of the sports teams that the obsessively love.

Don't *even* get New England guys into a conversation about the Patriots. The words 'spygate' or 'Tom Brady' or 'Bill Bellichek' will start a conversation that will last for hours, and include the creepiest, stalkeriest, mind-numbingest minutiae you can imagine...

Thankfully, not everyone in New England is a sports fan, though the way the various teams seem to keep winning now sure does hurt the cause. When I was still in my college dorm, I PRAYED for the Red Sox / Patriots / whoever to lose. When they lost in the playoffs, people would sulk and be miserable in their rooms. When they won, they would riot! Rampage across campus, streak, set dumpsters on fire, all late into the night...and then two months later, everyone's families get a bill in the mail... I'll never understand. You'd think losing would make people angry and lead to that stupidity, not winning. Not sure if it's the alcohol, do people drink more when they're celebrating or escaping despair?

back on topic...