Haters indeed, are gonna hate

Let's start this article off right by saying that I really respect and thank blizzard for what they've done for the MMO genre (and online games in general). World of Warcraft is now the literal bar by which all MMOs are compared. It pulled MMO's out of what I call the age of grinding, where it was totally okay for games that popularized the genre like Ultima Online, Everquest, and their followers to be completely pointless grindfests. WoW really was the first MMO to make leveling fun by creatively using their objective based quest system. They were the first to really make balanced, fun Player vs Player content. They made grouping non-mandatory but totally worth doing with instanced dungeons and a loot system that smelled distinctly of Diablo 2. To top it all off, they pumped out free updates bigger than most Everquest expansions and supported players at max level with a constant stream of content. In 2004, Blizzard created arguably the best MMORPG the world has ever seen, and I freaking hate it.



I know what you're thinking. Did I lose my entire social life and blame it on Blizzard like this guy? The answer is no. I hate Blizzard's Magnum Opus for a number of reason which are unrelated to the massive controversy of addiction. I didn't lose anyone to/because of WoW. I just can't stand it for these 3 major reasons.

1. They've created a monster.


You knew this image was coming.


World of warcraft has created one of the most annoying fanboy groups the world has ever known since the onset of sony fanboyism in the early days of the PS3. I'm talking of course, about FACTION fanboys. You can find these guys in just about every corner of the internet clogging up message boards with the irritating notion that their imaginary group of races is somehow inherently better than the other group of imaginary races simply by virtue of them choosing it.

but thats not the best part. The best part is the freakin ELITISM that comes with such a fanbase. WoW not only has spawned the worst fanboys, but some of the most elitist neckbeard pricks I have met in my entire life. Many of you know one or more of these guys. They know everything about raiding. They know everything about dueling. They know everything about your class and theirs and every way to beat you in every pseudo-scientific analysis of a scenario you can imagine. They go on and on and on about their gear and their skills and the notion that one class takes more skill to play than the others(usually theirs). NEWSFLASH: Wow is not a difficult game to play. Its actually one of the easiest games I've ever played, and playing a class doesn't take more than paying attention and hitting a few buttons. They're all pretty easy to play.

And by god, when these elitists organize and form guilds it can be a freaking nightmare. I remember when a guild in an MMO was a group of people who played together to have fun and watch each others back. Well, those days for the most part are dead and gone, and now endgame guilds are synonymous with "Job" in the fact that the endgame guilds all require an application, interview, and required hours of commitment. Is it any wonder people frown upon the mere mention of "I play WoW" with neckbeard elitists being the most vocal representation of a WoW player?

The most irritating thing (to me) about them is that they often times speak in theory like a small child. If you discuss pvp with a neckbeard in person, I guarantee you he will say the equivalent of "nuh uh, I'd do this then" to every point you make to nullify it. Which brings me to my 2nd major gripe.

2. Blizzard, you've killed PvP for me


Back in my day, we had to walk fifteeeeeeeeeeen miles back to town to get rezzed.




Being an Ultima Online veteran, I've had my fair share of open world PvP. In the times before WoW, PvP was a scandalous subject. In Ultima, the only reward for murdering someone was the savage pleasure of it, and the loot the victim dropped. PKing was HEAVILY penalized in UO. By killing someone you risked everything. You could no longer enter towns without being auto killed by guards on sight. If you died you were fully lootable and had no access to NPC healers, so unless you had a healer friend you were done for. And finally, after PKing had gotten out of control, they institute a policy of "stat-loss" upon resurrecting as a murderer. You lost stats, which is the functional equivalent of de-leveling.

Despite this, player killing was hugely popular in Ultima, and absolutely thrilling. I can't count the number of times I narrowly escaped a band of players hunting the bounty on my head, or the times I've ambushed unsuspecting players with a group of friends and slaughtered them. In most cases the only reward for my evils was the pleasure of defeating another player and watching his ghost run back to town.

In WoW, PvP has been tamed entirely. With a majority of servers offering completely optional world PvP and battlegrounds. Battlegrounds to me feel like the cheap tacked on multiplayer mode that accompanies most of today's shooters. It's completely isolated (for the most part) from the main game, and most people play them to grind for gear, removing the whole "soul" of old PvP and replacing it with the same old gear grind as PvE. Not to mention that games are populated largely with geared up grindmongers who can defeat a fresh max level easily. Which brings me to my 3rd major gripe

3. The gear system is depressing.


I don't know what this guy is wearing, but I guarantee you won't beat him unless you're wearing functionally the same thing


I love loot. From Borderlands to Diablo 2 I love killing stuff and getting the next gun or axe or gun-axe but loot in WoW is just out of control. Blizzard produces tier sets of armor for each class at endgame. The tier sets are what I like to call invisible levels. A freshly geared level 60 could never, ever, dream to beat a well geared 60 and that was the law. As of the last time I played, this law holds true. With good reason I suppose. There's no way to keep the end game players without adding more and more loot for them to grab. If the loot isn't significantly better than previously loot I imagine people would lose interest.

What it boils down to is that your character worth is the functional equivalent of how much time you spend grinding gear. Progressively, the more time you spend the less you get out of playing, yet endgame players are the most intense grinders we've come to see.

So to recap, in a nutshell, Blizzard's created one of the worst fanboy conflicts in history and spawned what is probably the worst elitism anybody has experienced this side of indie games. Finally, they fixed, improved, and simultaneously killed for me two very important aspects of MMOs...PvP and Loot. So for this, I can't not forgive them. However, they have moved the genre forward by what appears to be lightyears, so I can't fault them for that. I give them my E for Effort.