WoW 2004=D&D 1980-ish

[Doug McCrae]

There was a lot more PvP back then. But we were young and didn't know how to behave.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

I wonder if something like this happened in newspaper offices back during the Net Bubble:

"You know, i got it! This internet thing is now what newspapers were when there was no internet! And that is why our bosses want to add an online presence! No longer are we going to be a newspaper - it seems inevitable that we turn into something else to fight the new kid on the block!"

"Please pass the sugar, Ed, will you?"

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You do, however, invite 5 friends over to bring their xboxes and play networked games. This is a common activity for my younger brother (age 19ish,) and if fills the same social function that table top RPGs did for me at that age.

When I was 16-22, we did this IN ADDITION to playing AD&D (only with our PCs and the PCs already in the house, which were legion), so saying that it "fills the same function" is perhaps misleading.

 

[Cadfan]

It occurs to me: concerns about whether WoW and D&D compete, or whether WoW is killing D&D, and so on are swinging wide of the real issue: WoW is D&D. Or, rather, it fills the same niche with the same demographic that D&D did all those years ago. It's why the enjoyment of either isn't mutually exclusive of the other -- that has more to do with generation than anything else, I think. D&D can't fight WoW because they are members of the same evolutionary line.

This makes sense.

This also suggests that D&D can't try and be, or beat, WoW and must either work to drain the wallets of its remaining, hardcore fans, or it must become something that is neither TRPG nor MMO. Ultimately, the collectible minis/competetive play model is probably the most potentially successful model of the game, at least as a physical, tabletop entity.

This doesn't.

Look. You're right on several levels. D&D was a pop culture (geek pop culture, admittedly) phenomenon at one point, and now its not. WoW currently is a pop culture phenomenon. D&D isn't going to "take back" its status as a pop culture phenomenon.

And on another level, right, back before there were lots of things for geeks to do, geeks mostly did the same stuff. When there was only one RPG on the market, no computer gakes to speak of, and miniature wargaming was primarily historical, fantasy/sci fi geeks clustered around D&D. Now, instead of having just one option for our geekiness, we have a huge buffet of geekiness from which to select. So D&D also will never get back that moment, when they were the first and the only, and everyone played.

This has happened in all kinds of hobbies. Back in the day, if someone read science fiction novels, you could list off a couple of authors that you loved and chances are they'd have read them as well. Why? Because there weren't that many. The same was true of fantasy novels. Now there's a lot more variety.

On one hand, this causes a loss of shared culture. Its hard to discuss books with my friends, because the first thing I have to do is convince them to go read the particular novels that I read so that we can discuss them. That's a loss, and it applies to D&D as well as books. Right now, if you pick 20 random people working in geek related industries, and ask them what D&D character class they played back in high school, they can answer. That won't be true in 20 years.

But its not the end of the world, and there are gains.

First, geekdom is bigger these days. There are more of us, and that means we (as a collective whole) can support more companies at one time. Wizards of the Coast might not get to gold plate their urinals, as I'm told they have at Blizzard, but that doesn't mean they can't run a healthy business and dominate the submarket of geekdom that enjoys TRPGs.

And second, well, stuff is better now than it was. With more options on the market, more authors and companies trying out different things, there's more possibilities of high quality productions being created. I am so glad that I live in a world where the best fantasy novels aren't Conan books. I live in a world with Perdido Street Station and Thunderer and The Music of Razors and I am so grateful.

I owe a debt to those early authors, but the possibilities that are around now are so diverse that there are so many gems amongst them that it could literally take me a lifetime to read every genuinely good fantasy book and play every genuinely good game.

Now that may mean that few single books or games will ever take off as pop culture phenoms like D&D or WoW or Harry Potter.

But does that really matter to me, given what I've gained for the cost?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Well said, Cadfan.

 

[Harshax]

WoW is currently in the same boat. It is present well beyond its actual popularity and has cemented a place in our popular consciousness. It also has its share of detractors and a pile of associated "cultural ills" associated with it. It appeals to the same niche as D&D did, but one or two geenrations along. It is a different animal than D&D and provides a different experience, but fills the same popular cultural niche.

Not to offend any WoW players, but I don't imagine them running off to the library to read up on 'mandrake', 'trebuchet' or 'guisarme', and thereby get what I oft consider to be a foundation for a hungry mind.

One could argue, WoW might encourage you to become a programmer or video artist, but that's not really the same at all.

I like the presentation, and the ability to chat sociably with people from all over the world, but in my opinion WoW is too passive of an activity compared to D&D.

My point being, WoW and D&D don't share the same niche, and playing one doesn't automatically mean you could enjoy the other.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Not to offend any WoW players, but I don't imagine them running off to the library to read up on 'mandrake', 'trebuchet' or 'guisarme', and thereby get what I oft consider to be a foundation for a hungry mind.

You'd be wrong about many WoW players. Check out WoWwiki.com, which, like other wikis, is entirely fan-created. A more daunting and hardcore nerd fantasy wiki you will never find.

 

[Harshax]

You'd be wrong about many WoW players. Check out WoWwiki.com, which, like other wikis, is entirely fan-created. A more daunting and hardcore nerd fantasy wiki you will never find.

I'm not sure how that url touches on what I've said. It is a game, much like any game, I expect serious players to properly collect and corroborate everything they can find about the world in which they play. While no small feat, I wouldn't compare that sort of dedication to being encouraged to read about the war of 1066, or Hamilton's Mythology.

 

[Reynard]

Name the RPG equivalent to "grinding"? Especially raid grinding, mat grinding. Sorry, but after 2 secs of thought it was obvious to me that there is no equivalent. I also don't "need" to pay DDI $14.99 to play the social game I love, unlike MMO's that demand that half my time must be spent "grinding." Not cool.

I am not sure what the relevence of this is to the subject at hand. The peculiarities of WoW or D&D play aren't at issue -- the issue is how these two things, D&D at the beginning of the phenomenon status in the later '70s and early '80s and WoW's emerging phenomenon status right now, are similar, and how a recognition of this fact leads one (i.e. me) to think that changing D&D so that it pulls in the WoW crowd isn't a particularly good method. I contend that since D&D and WoW serve their respective generations in much the same way, the WoW generation isn't going to have much interest in D&D no matter how WoW-like it might become, any more than most people that fell in love with D&D "back in the day" are going to gravitate toward WoW. Rather, D&D, to survive the bleeding off of the aging population of gamers, needs to reinvent itself as something else, different from both D&D as it was when it was popular and different from what WoW is.

 

[The Little Raven]

While no small feat, I wouldn't compare that sort of dedication to being encouraged to read about the war of 1066, or Hamilton's Mythology.

Just wanted to point out that WoWWiki is the second largest English wiki in the world, behind Wikipedia. That's a huge feat right there, considering the amount of other wikis for various topics (such as Star Wars).

http://www.massively.com/2008/03/08/sxsw08-how-gamers-are-adopting-the-wiki-way/