World of Warcraft killed our gaming group!

[mhacdebhandia]

If my gaming group was killed off by World of Warcraft, I'd take it as a challenge to find out why my players preferred it to our game.

It might be that the answer is "They just enjoy MMORPGs more than tabletop RPGs", or it might be specific to the game being played.

 

[Dagger75]

Lets see my current gaming group played these MMORPG's

DM (me): UO, EQ, WoW and now EvE online

Warlock: EQ, WoW and occasionaly Eve

Rogue: UO, EQ, WoW and EvE online

Wizard: UO, EvE Online (he quite on us for)..... WoW

He is new to it and loving it. The 3 of us who quite have given him advice, hell I gave him my account. He and his girlfriend are on some RP server having a blast. We all get the jokes about looking for people with ! or ? over their heads. We give him pointers, tell him what quests he should do and so on. Then its off to the D&D game.

We usally talk about EvE online for about 1/2 hour before the game. I have never had a gaming group fall apart over it. We were never into the RP of any of these games, just the aquiring of Phat Lewtz. We all seem to jump ship and play the same MMORPG when we do play, join the same guild and such.

 

[Duo Maxwell]

I am very lucky to have my group relatively intact since WoW's release. While half of the group plays the game (myself included), we still manage to devote one day almost every week to pen-and-paper RPGs.

While my group are still video gamers at heart, we still appreciate the social qualities that come with the tabletop RPGs. It reminds us that we're able to do things beyond what any video game can do for us and our own face-to-face interaction will be more satisfying and memorable than a guild title or treasure trove from a raid.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I DM our group and I play a lot of WoW and one other player plays a lot of DDO. It doesn't interfere with gaming though. I prefer tabletop gaming to online for most of the reasons stated by others.

 

[jtone]

My group has pretty much quit playing due to WoW. Mind you, my group conists of two couples with 7 kids between us (and all the activities that entails), so scheduling was always a problem. We were lucky to get 2 games/month in. When I quit pushing tabletop, we didn't scheduled another game.

The big attraction of WoW for us is that you can play whenever you have a couple of hours free and you can play it at home. So rather than getting 9 people's schedules synched up, dragging 3-4 kids to a different place, taking care of the all the kids' bumps, scrapes, and scuffles while trying to play, you just log on and go to it. It's not as much fun - in the same way that fast food isn't as good as home made - but it has a much lower barrier to entry.

 

[Vascant]

We almost had this happen during the Ultima Online Era, most of us were on the intitial beta test team for UO so we spent a huge amount of time playing it. It got a little crazy there for a while but we braved the storm and came out at the end as a D&D group once more. Since then pretty much any online game hasn't even really been a phase or a consideration, they just don't seem fun anymore.

I do wish you luck though, online gaming can be a nasty crack habit.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

My gaming group sits somewhere between you two at Birkenfeld and Idar-Oberstein.

I know Birkenfeld. In fact, my now only gaming group consists of people from Birkenfeld and the area around it - and me.

I am not a casual gamer and I do expect my players to commit to the time we play together.

Exactly. It's not because it's "just a game". It's a sheduled event. I reserve time for it, I don't do anything else on a whim, and when it not happens, there's a big black hole in my schedule. I don't waste the time of people I consider friends, and I think it's not too much to ask to expect those people return the favour.

Out of curiousity, before this, was there a high interest in your game? Did those same players often come up with excuses not to play before? It might just be a conflict in playing styles. Casual gamers vs regular gamers. That sort of thing.

Not from these players. We already purged our group from those players (mainly at my insistance, and because I quit all games that were cancelled all the time - since we never had too many spare players, the group would dissolve after that, anyway)

The two in question usually were pretty reliable (and had their own dislike of people who reneged on us to go relaxing at the lake or something). But since they become messed up with WoW, they seemed to be more interested to use our gaming time discussing their mutual addiction than actually playing.

 

[Goblyn]

I feel lucky here. Most of my players are brand new to DnD; brought from video games. One of the best things they love(mentioned, anyway) about DnD is that you can try and do anything at all. Just roll a d20 and I'll tell you what mods to add(or subtract).

 

[Felon]

IME, the players that get sucked away by WoW tend to be hack-and-slashers. Since that's not my cup of tea, I generally place their departure under the "good riddance" heading.

Really, what is enjoyable about a MMORPG beyond A) killing things and B) upgrading your character? Even if you're on an RP server, what is there to talk in-character about other than A and B?

And raids. Many, how can that not get old real fast? I guess there are a lot of folks who would be delighted to be Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, repeating the same events over and over without significant deviation.

 

[Pants]

And raids. Many, how can that not get old real fast? I guess there are a lot of folks who would be delighted to be Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, repeating the same events over and over without significant deviation.

Depending upon what class you play, but IME RAIDS do get boring after a while, but I still enjoy getting together and BSing with people online. It's fun, but I don't always want to do it.

Then again, being a warrior in a raid is vastly different than being a caster-class in a raid, so there are ways to alleviate the boredom