WOW: WTF?

I played Warcraft II. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I played Warcraft III. It was... okay. I played World of Warcraft. I didn't get it.

Why do people play that game?!

Okay, okay, I can understand the psychology behind the addiction. The game is designed to lure players in and keep them there for as long as possible. The longer they keep playing, the more money Blizzard makes off them, thanks to subscription fees. Players are sent off on hundreds of little quests, collecting items and performing various menial tasks in the hope of gaining experience/items/notoriety. It's like those lab rats who learn that pushing the red lever will dispense food. Except in WoW, the red lever only SOMETIMES dispenses food. Sometimes, it does nothing. So the rats frantically push the lever, day after day, and every so often they get a randomized reward that makes their little hearts go pitter-pat.

I understand how the design of the game works to keep players coming back. What I don't understand is how anyone finds the game amusing at all. Where's the appeal?

I played the game for a while, years ago. I achieved level 12 before giving up. Understand, it takes a while to reach level twelve. We're talking maybe fifteen or twenty game hours. After all that time, I realized something. I had not yet had enjoyed myself while playing.

Now, it's possible that the game becomes more interesting at higher levels. But I doubt it. From what I've seen and heard, it continues to be formulaic and uninteresting. You talk with someone with a question mark, roam around killing stuff and collecting stuff, talk with the person again, get something from the little adventure. Wash, rinse, repeat. And people will do this FOR MONTHS. Some people have been doing it for years!

I don't get it. When does the game get fun? Someone has to explain this one to me.

Here is one of several problems I have with the game: It doesn't end! Granted, it's a game whose primary goal is to keep players paying the monthly subscription fee, so it's in the companies best interest to keep the storyline, such as it is, going for a long time. This is a great money-making scheme that has worked for television shows, comic books, and horror movie franchises for decades. But it rarely makes for good story-telling.

One of the reasons I prefer Japanese manga to American comic books is because manga writers are much more willing to finish the story. Trigun has a beginning, middle, and end. Once the story finishes, that's it. There is no more. Hope you enjoyed the ride, because that's all you get out of these characters and this universe. But my GOD, it's a fun ride. Batman, on the other hand, has been going for decades, with the occasional gritty reboot. Don't get me wrong; I love Batman. But I could never read the comics. I like my stories to eventually get wrapped up nicely.

World of Warcraft ostensibly is telling a story about a young adventurer who rises to power/fame/glory/whatever. This adventurer apparently makes his or her rise by collecting wolf pelts and fishing at every opportunity, including while raiding enemy cities. This adventurer's story never ends, though. He or she just keeps getting wealthier and more powerful, and probably has to wander around as a ghost every once in a while, looking for his or her body.

I play video games because I am interested in the story. The Zelda games, despite being quite formulaic, tell a fun and engaging story, as well as provide interesting and enjoyable gameplay. Dante's Inferno, a video game released last year, had many flaws, including shoddy cinematography which made combat and platforming unnecessarily difficult, some truly obnoxious puzzles, and an incoherent combat system that was fine when battling bosses and mini-bosses, but made fighting hoards of minions ridiculously easy, albeit somewhat time-consuming and repetitive. Despite all that, I enjoyed the game, because I was engrossed in the storyline.

Deus Ex? Cool storyline.

God of War? Cool storyline.

Dead Space? Very cool storyline.

Resident Evil 5? Terrible storyline, which is partially why it sucked so bad. (Although the fact that you were never alone--you always had a partner with you--made it difficult to feel fear and get a nice adrenaline rush during the supposedly scary situations. Solitude is what makes survival horror games frightening. Take away solitude, and your survival horror game isn't going to work. End of rant.)

World of Warcraft? Storyline is... just a disguise. A mask, to help players forget that they are just performing the same task over and over again. So all you WoW fans, you keep pushing that red lever. I hope you find the reward your looking for. As for me, I'm going to read a book.

What's In A Game?

What makes a good game? Why are some games fun and interesting, while others are just meh? Here are some criteria, in no particular order, that I use when I try a new board game or card game:

1. Easy to Learn

The game has to wow me right off the bat. Now, some games may have a neat gimmick (like Killer Bunnies) or take place in an interesting setting (like Warhammer 40,000 or Betrayal at House on the Hill), and for such "fluffy" games, I'm willing to be patient and learn a complex rule system.

For the most part, though, I enjoy a game that I can pick up and learn easily. It has the advantage of not losing my attention, which can be a bit short, span-wise. Also, I can turn around and teach the game to others.

2. Depth of Strategy

Easy to learn, difficult to master. Those are traits I really enjoy in a game. Card games like Magic: The Gathering or Dominion, for example, have a lot of subtle interactions between the cards. Similarly, the base mechanics of Carcassonne are easy to grasp, yet the game provides many strategic options and a plethora of decisions to make.

A writer and game designer whom I admire greatly once wrote an article about the difference between choices and decisions in a game. It took him an entire article to fully explain his thesis, but the gist of it was that some games provide you with many choices, or options, and you simply have to choose the best option. Other games, however, create moments wherein your options suddenly become limited, and you must make a decision about which route to take.

I believe that a good game backs players into corners and forces them to make strategic decisions. "Do I sacrifice my bishop to put myself on offense, or do I just move my king out of immediate danger, but stay in a defensive mode?" That's a game-changing decision, and it adds tension, which I enjoy. "What do I kill with this Lightning Bolt?" on the other hand, is a choice, which may create a decision for my opponent, but is usually just simple mathematics for me.

3. Replayability

Some games have a very heavy story element to them, which is cool. It can be harmful, though. It's hard to justify spending sixty dollars on a game that's only good for a couple plays. Murder mystery games, for example, suffer from this problem. You play through them once, and from then on you know whodunnit. Even if you can get a completely fresh group to play with you, you already know the story. The Horus Heresy game, I am told, has the same problem. While it may be fun to play out the final battle to defend the Emperor of Mankind against the corrupt heretic forces, after six or seven games, it gets stale.

Single-player video games can suffer from this same problem, although in their defense, they often take a few dozen hours to finish. Fifty dollars for a game that takes twenty five hours to beat equals two dollars per hour of entertainment, which makes it four or five times better than hitting up a movie theater, as an investment. Board games that lack replayability, however, can sometimes only boast five or six hours of fun before becoming uninteresting. At that rate, you'd be better off taking your sweetheart to a water park.

4. Rewards Skillful Play

I enjoy feeling rewarded for my efforts when I'm trying hard and playing well. There are some games--Killer Bunnies comes to mind--that, when boiled down, are almost entirely random. Roulette is the same way. You're just hoping to get lucky. I don't care for that. I like feeling that my efforts are paying off.

With games like Carcassonne or Magic: The Gathering, on the other hand, you can actually watch as you gain points on the score chart or see your opponent's life total diminish. It's fabulous.

5. Randomization

As much as I like being able to play skillfully and be rewarded, I also like a bit of randomness in my games. Chess is all well and good, but the really good players know when and how it's going to end long before less-experienced players such as myself. A bit of randomization, like rolling dice or shuffling cards, helps balance the game enough that newer or less-skilled players can still have a shot at winning. It adds a bit of danger and excitement to the game.

6. Non-Aggressive Strategies

This isn't as important to me as some of the other points I've mentioned, but I am not a mean person at heart. Sometimes, I have trouble being cutthroat enough to win games. I like games like Dominion, Carcassonne, or even (if you play your cards right) Magic: The Gathering, that provide strategies wherein you don't actually have to interact with the other players. That way, I can avoid upsetting anybody. That's probably why I love combo decks in Magic: The Gathering so much. I can just do my own thing, ignore my opponent, and try to just win before my opponent can kill me. Although that can upset some opponents, too, so I guess I can't always avoid making people mad. Sigh.

7. Fun

This is hard to quantify. Different people enjoy different things.

Here's my beef with games like FarmVille, Mafia Wars, or World of Warcraft. You do the exact same thing over, and over, and over again. Now, that would be fine if what you were doing was enjoyable, but it's just... not.

I sure do loves me some Dominion, though.