The one thing i'll agree with the op is on the LFG cross server system being redundant now. I personally really enjoyed being able to log in for 40 mins get a group right away and be off. Now I won't even touch it which really sux.
I'm in a pvp guild, and the main reason I came back for this expansion was for the rated bgs. THE MAIN REASON. Rated bgs are still freaking broken, you lose points for winning... This is my main piss off, I mean the one big change they made for cataclysm was rated bgs and its fucking broken?
Yeah that is pretty borked. And then the Tol Barad fiasco. It almost feels like pvp was a complete oversight by the developers. They thought up some ideas but then never tested them out.
The one thing i'll agree with the op is on the LFG cross server system being redundant now. I personally really enjoyed being able to log in for 40 mins get a group right away and be off. Now I won't even touch it which really sux.
I'm in a pvp guild, and the main reason I came back for this expansion was for the rated bgs. THE MAIN REASON. Rated bgs are still freaking broken, you lose points for winning... This is my main piss off, I mean the one big change they made for cataclysm was rated bgs and its fucking broken?
Upon winning a rated Battleground, rating, wins, and Conquest Points are awarded and display properly.
Negative amounts of Conquest Points can no longer be awarded after a match win.
Patched back in Dec, around 10 days after the first rated PvP was introduced. As I remember that was even before the second week of rated BG's ended.
I consider you are not playing this game at all and picked up something on the forums. As usual.
Threads like this really validate my decision to quit this addiction / disease. Watching some of you, especially you angry wow apologist posters, remind me of every poor pathetic drug junkie I've ever seen on the streets or TV. Wake up kids, this game is bad for you, and both your mental and phsycal health. As for those angry hardcore raiders that are yelling at you OP, don't argue with these guys. They are heavily under an unhealthy (and medically demonstrated and documented) addiction. Rather than argue with them, you really should be more sympathetic. These guys really need some help from you and I because they need to break this cycle. Think about it. Think about the hours that go into a hardcore raider's schedule every week. Think about how much time that has wasted over the course of a year. Now think about that over 6 years of your life which you'll never get back that has done nothing whatsoever to improve your real life. That's not a hobby or a pastime, that's an unhealty addiction.
You know, some people are actually enjoying WoW minus the addiction/disease that you mention. Considering how casual the game can be, the majority have most likely avoided this affliction altogether.
But even for the casual gamers... 6 years? c'mon. that's still an addiction, the only difference is that they socilaize/craft/gather/AH/5-man/etc instead of raid. A casual smoker is still addicted to nicotine, he just forces himself to abstain for longers intervals. Pretty miserable way to live IMO. It's still not doing anything good for you so why "casually" do it either?
And those who you mentioned avoiding the addiction? Well I'm pretty sure they aren't the 4-6 year constantly (or frequently) subbed players I'm referring to. They're the ones who kicked it. So in essence I'm not really disagreeing with you
Your arguement is flawed. You are saying people that sub 4-6 years( because it does nothing good for you) are addicted and need help? There are a million things that people do that is not good for them. For everything people do there are those who take it too far. There are some people who exercise too much. Thats doing something good for themselves but over doing it. Besides this fact most people are casual players and never get as bad as the few you hear about.
Really. So because there are millions of things that aren't good for them, that makes them ok? You sound like one yourself, that's a classic denial line.
Me: smoking is bad for your health
smoker: I'm not worried about my health. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow
Me: Would you deliberately walk in front of a bus?
smoker: Of course not
Me: do you look before stepping out into the street?
smoker: Of course I do
You don't deliberately go looking for ways to affect your health, social life, finances etc for something that doesn't really do anything positive for you, so why stay playing the same game for 4-6 years? Because you are an addict.
I suppose next you're going to try and tell us that Blizzard (any MMO for that matter) doesn't deliberately create hooks that are specifically engineered to keep you subbing and the revenues from it for as long as they possibly can right? (they do, do the research yourself don't take my word for it) Is that good marketing strategy? Ok, yes it is. Last time I checked, tobacco companies use good marketing tools as well, but that's ok too right, because it's good capitalist thinking. Or that there aren't actually warcraft addiction clinics (there are)
There are so many jokes and wisecracks about 'warcrack' it's ridiculously common, so spare me the excuses about MY logic and don't be so naive.
The only really good thing about this expansion is the levelling the new zones and the questing. I put to you that this expansion was not made for the players this one was made for grind and profit over and above what an enjoyable game should be about.
The new mass rvr zone tol barad is full of pve, so in order to rep up with a pvp faction you have to pve alot outside of the event, if you win the event you then have to pve again to gain extra rep. It is not even fun pve it is collect 10 of x, kill 15 of x, take out captain x. Wintergrasp quests were all wrapped up with the event it was smooth and flowed. Dont get me started on no flying.
The PvE content heroic wise completely makes the dungeon finder tool redundant if you PUG expect to wipe for a couple of hours, in the rarest of cases you may be lucky, arguements and finger pointing are the normal, blizzard have actually managed to turn players on themselves. Even if you manage to complete a couple of heroics which might take most of your day you cannot purchase your t11, ok sure what about pvp.
Rated BGs you gain a good reward for these if you have a highly organised pvp raid of players. If you happen to join on your own forget it what you gain for your efforts is pitiful. No matter what happened with this game if I was with no guild or online on my own I could rely on just queuing up for some fun and getting somewhere for my efforts.
Raids are not pugable anymore it requires a dance troop routine style execution in order to complete. This I am ok with let the raiders have their time their glory but for gods sake do not penalise me everywhere else.
This is my warning to you, I have had a lot of experience with many games including a good history with wow. This is not a pick up and play game anymore if you want to achieve anything you will need to dedicate your time and energy into a proper raiding guild over many hours.
Once you have hit cap, leave cause getting to cap is the only content worth doing. Try it for yourself if you like but I warned you. I am hoping rifts pvp will give me what Im looking for.
For me personally Cataclysm is wow's swan song. I may return at some point and for the while will focus my time on my own activities, perhaps just crafting. Unless things change my 3 accounts for me and my family will remain shut and a competitor can have my money, does blizzard care for a drop in the ocean I don't know but I refuse to continue paying and vote with my feet.
Welcome to a new expansion. This game isn't more difficult than it was in Burning Crusade or Vanilla. You have horrible gear and your worried about wiping in dungeons, needing to learn fights and how to play well? Boy, oh boy. Wrath of the Lich King was way too easy and I don't care if you're casual or hardcore, there's no excuse for that ease that it had.
Tol Barad has a PvP zone and a PvE zone. You need rep for what? Blue items? A tabard that takes four days to get? Mounts? are you kidding? It's not even worth talking about.. and it takes no time at all to get exalted with it. The dailies are there for you to make money and right now they are pretty difficult, but give me a break. It's an awesome "RVR" zone and I absolutely would say the quests are far better than "weekly" Wintergrasp quests.
This is not WoW's "swan song", it's a revival of old tactics and enjoyment. Wrath of the Lich King was the worst experience I've had in my six years of playing WoW and in my sixteen years of Warcraft. Cataclysm, which in my opinion ruined the leveling experience (which has been steady trend since patch 2.3, that nerfed vanilla leveling), the dungeons, heroics, raids and rated PvP experience is a lot better.
Threads like this really validate my decision to quit this addiction / disease. Watching some of you, especially you angry wow apologist posters, remind me of every poor pathetic drug junkie I've ever seen on the streets or TV. Wake up kids, this game is bad for you, and both your mental and phsycal health. As for those angry hardcore raiders that are yelling at you OP, don't argue with these guys. They are heavily under an unhealthy (and medically demonstrated and documented) addiction. Rather than argue with them, you really should be more sympathetic. These guys really need some help from you and I because they need to break this cycle. Think about it. Think about the hours that go into a hardcore raider's schedule every week. Think about how much time that has wasted over the course of a year. Now think about that over 6 years of your life which you'll never get back that has done nothing whatsoever to improve your real life. That's not a hobby or a pastime, that's an unhealty addiction.
You know, some people are actually enjoying WoW minus the addiction/disease that you mention. Considering how casual the game can be, the majority have most likely avoided this affliction altogether.
But even for the casual gamers... 6 years? c'mon. that's still an addiction, the only difference is that they socilaize/craft/gather/AH/5-man/etc instead of raid. A casual smoker is still addicted to nicotine, he just forces himself to abstain for longers intervals. Pretty miserable way to live IMO. It's still not doing anything good for you so why "casually" do it either?
And those who you mentioned avoiding the addiction? Well I'm pretty sure they aren't the 4-6 year constantly (or frequently) subbed players I'm referring to. They're the ones who kicked it. So in essence I'm not really disagreeing with you
Your arguement is flawed. You are saying people that sub 4-6 years( because it does nothing good for you) are addicted and need help? There are a million things that people do that is not good for them. For everything people do there are those who take it too far. There are some people who exercise too much. Thats doing something good for themselves but over doing it. Besides this fact most people are casual players and never get as bad as the few you hear about.
Really. So because there are millions of things that aren't good for them, that makes them ok? You sound like one yourself, that's a classic denial line.
Me: smoking is bad for your health
smoker: I'm not worried about my health. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow
Me: Would you deliberately walk in front of a bus?
smoker: Of course not
Me: do you look before stepping out into the street?
smoker: Of course I do
You don't deliberately go looking for ways to affect your health, social life, finances etc for something that doesn't really do anything positive for you, so why stay playing the same game for 4-6 years? Because you are an addict.
I suppose next you're going to try and tell us that Blizzard (any MMO for that matter) doesn't deliberately create hooks that are specifically engineered to keep you subbing and the revenues from it for as long as they possibly can right? (they do, do the research yourself don't take my word for it) Is that good marketing strategy? Ok, yes it is. Last time I checked, tobacco companies use good marketing tools as well, but that's ok too right, because it's good capitalist thinking. Or that there aren't actually warcraft addiction clinics (there are)
There are so many jokes and wisecracks about 'warcrack' it's ridiculously common, so spare me the excuses about MY logic and don't be so naive.
If doing something that 'negatively' affects my social life/finances/health for years is considered an addiction I've been addicted to my TV/DVD/VHS for all of my life.
Or Steam/GOG for the last 3 years.
Or going out to town with my friends for god knows how long.
Or even eating junk food for all of my life!
Yeah, I'm addicted to so many things! HELP! /sarcasm
Gdemami - Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Threads like this really validate my decision to quit this addiction / disease. Watching some of you, especially you angry wow apologist posters, remind me of every poor pathetic drug junkie I've ever seen on the streets or TV. Wake up kids, this game is bad for you, and both your mental and phsycal health. As for those angry hardcore raiders that are yelling at you OP, don't argue with these guys. They are heavily under an unhealthy (and medically demonstrated and documented) addiction. Rather than argue with them, you really should be more sympathetic. These guys really need some help from you and I because they need to break this cycle. Think about it. Think about the hours that go into a hardcore raider's schedule every week. Think about how much time that has wasted over the course of a year. Now think about that over 6 years of your life which you'll never get back that has done nothing whatsoever to improve your real life. That's not a hobby or a pastime, that's an unhealty addiction.
You know, some people are actually enjoying WoW minus the addiction/disease that you mention. Considering how casual the game can be, the majority have most likely avoided this affliction altogether.
But even for the casual gamers... 6 years? c'mon. that's still an addiction, the only difference is that they socilaize/craft/gather/AH/5-man/etc instead of raid. A casual smoker is still addicted to nicotine, he just forces himself to abstain for longers intervals. Pretty miserable way to live IMO. It's still not doing anything good for you so why "casually" do it either?
And those who you mentioned avoiding the addiction? Well I'm pretty sure they aren't the 4-6 year constantly (or frequently) subbed players I'm referring to. They're the ones who kicked it. So in essence I'm not really disagreeing with you
Your arguement is flawed. You are saying people that sub 4-6 years( because it does nothing good for you) are addicted and need help? There are a million things that people do that is not good for them. For everything people do there are those who take it too far. There are some people who exercise too much. Thats doing something good for themselves but over doing it. Besides this fact most people are casual players and never get as bad as the few you hear about.
Really. So because there are millions of things that aren't good for them, that makes them ok? You sound like one yourself, that's a classic denial line.
Me: smoking is bad for your health
smoker: I'm not worried about my health. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow
Me: Would you deliberately walk in front of a bus?
smoker: Of course not
Me: do you look before stepping out into the street?
smoker: Of course I do
You don't deliberately go looking for ways to affect your health, social life, finances etc for something that doesn't really do anything positive for you, so why stay playing the same game for 4-6 years? Because you are an addict.
I suppose next you're going to try and tell us that Blizzard (any MMO for that matter) doesn't deliberately create hooks that are specifically engineered to keep you subbing and the revenues from it for as long as they possibly can right? (they do, do the research yourself don't take my word for it) Is that good marketing strategy? Ok, yes it is. Last time I checked, tobacco companies use good marketing tools as well, but that's ok too right, because it's good capitalist thinking. Or that there aren't actually warcraft addiction clinics (there are)
There are so many jokes and wisecracks about 'warcrack' it's ridiculously common, so spare me the excuses about MY logic and don't be so naive.
So by your logic people should stop living in fear? I'm not arguing that people take stuff to fair and that companys like blizz don't profit. WHAT i'm saying is people have to practice self control. You can blame the companies all you want but in the end its the people who make the choice. Not only that but there are many governement polices are in place so that weak-mined people can be at least warned and not unfairly targeted. Warnings on ciggarettes and nutriential values on big mac boxes. Mcdonalds made me fat and WOW ruined my life won't cut it anymore. Take some responsiblity!
I love how people blame a game for their obesession problems. If it wasn't wow it would be something else. Just because you had a problem doesn't mean everyone else does or that it is the fault of the game.
In my opinion, the problem is that there's simply too much of a difficulty gap between regulars and heroics. Heroics aren't too bad once you're heroic geared, the problem is that to even get to that level, you need to beat your face against heroics and pray you get lucky with group composition, competant players, and the RNG.
If Blizzard truly wants Heroics to be as difficult as they are, they should have added a dungeon difficulty setting for all Cata dungeons at 85 that was slightly harder than regular 85 dungeons, but easier than heroics. At least then there would have been more of a stepping stone for gear and learning for players, rather than suddenly hitting a wall of fail when they start heroics. It wouldn't even be all that hard to add this either, since it would just require tweaking down MOB health and DPS about 20% or somesuch from Heroics, and dropping the iLevel of loot somewhere between 333 and 346. At least this way players could learn the extra quirks of the heroic encounters without being double reamed with the iLevel expectations.
I would give the same remark I made a few posts back when two or three other guys discussed the trends.
Great post, great effort, but ...
Everyone reasons within his/her own playing experience/reference. Wow is much more than running the next dungeon or Raid. Of course few people agree with this, but I would recommend going outside to a club and talk to people actively playing WOW and I guess you would be surprised just how many have not your personal individual playing style.
This is not an opinion but an observation from what I saw ... talking ... with RL people when they like to talk about their game. Even in Wotlk very few raided constantly... Surprise.
To give one example: on the launching night I spoke to around 30 people standing in line at the night shop around me. These are hardcore right ? Because standing in the rain in the middle of the night for a video game ...
Guess what: only 1 had downed the Lich King in Heroic mode ... but ... with the 30% debuff mode. The vast majority didn't even weekly Raid at all and we are talking Wotlk here...with people standing at night to get their hands on the latest expansion.
Get the picture ? This game is played by millions and millions and they all play for their own reasons. Everyone touches upon his/her own ... limits and they "solve" it their way. That's the basic message. They don't read posts in forums either.
MMORPG.COM is a very very tiny part of actual WOW players. We don't have a clue about those millions. Believe me. Well actually you don't have to believe me. I point to the data servers that get analysed by Blizzard on a daily basis.
Trivial discusssions for millions of different people. I am betting that those figures in blue mean shit for the VAST majority of WOW players like my aunt.
I'm well aware that WoW is suppose to be more than just running the next dungeon and raid... but unfortunately that's the focus of the game. There's very little alternative gameplay advancement. Sure there are a few mini-games, archeology being the newest of them, but in the end the game boils down to chasing gear from rep grinds -> dungeons -> heroics -> raids. There are no appearance slots to give chasing aesthetic gear more meaning, there's no guild or player housing, no alternative advancement system, etc, etc. So unless Blizzard is going to start adding these things, they might as well fix their end-game PvE curve to be more pallatable to the average player, either by adding stepping stone content between reg 85 dungeons and heroics, or making heroics less painful in general... and possibly bumping them up in difficulty later.
As per the WOTLK arguement... path of least resistence. Most people didn't bother with hardmodes because they didn't have to. Sure you got better gear, but that gear mostly existed to do more hardmodes, there was no additional content to aim for beyond ICC. To even start ICC hardmode you needed to pretty much clear ICC on reg mode already, and by the time most players had done this, the expansion was close, and most people stopped raiding altogether due to the futility of the fact that their gear advancement would be neutered by gear obtained leveling to 85.
First, it's good that the game got harder, maybe now we will get rid of the so called wotlk-generation.
Second, it's funny to see people think it's a grinder now, when it has allways been a grinder. "NO IT HAS NEVER BEEN A GRINDER AS LONG AS I HAVE PLAYED" Well, sorry, you have just replaced the word grind with farm... but replacing a word doesn't make it less of a grinder. What am I on about? Well, think back, how did we get the gear? how did we get the rep? yeah, through farming aka grinding. But what would the game be without grinding? Kind of empty imo. They need to keep you occupied, yes? And grind is the best way. They just coat sugar on the grind and call it farming instead. People rant about Aion being a grinder, but still... So is WoW. And as equally bad grinder too. They have only removed the grinding from the leveling. Because back in vanilla, wow was also a grindleveling game. Took ages to get to 60. Now they make it all about endgame, but still you have to grind, farm, for gear and rep. As in any other game in the genre. "You don't have to grind when you pvp!" No? So... what is this conquestpoints about? What is Honorpoints about? Yeah, you have to grind the BG's to get HP and Conquestpoints. So even there it is a grinder. Sorry, you can't escape the fact that you are actually playing a grinder.
Threads like this really validate my decision to quit this addiction / disease. Watching some of you, especially you angry wow apologist posters, remind me of every poor pathetic drug junkie I've ever seen on the streets or TV. Wake up kids, this game is bad for you, and both your mental and phsycal health. As for those angry hardcore raiders that are yelling at you OP, don't argue with these guys. They are heavily under an unhealthy (and medically demonstrated and documented) addiction. Rather than argue with them, you really should be more sympathetic. These guys really need some help from you and I because they need to break this cycle. Think about it. Think about the hours that go into a hardcore raider's schedule every week. Think about how much time that has wasted over the course of a year. Now think about that over 6 years of your life which you'll never get back that has done nothing whatsoever to improve your real life. That's not a hobby or a pastime, that's an unhealty addiction.
You know, some people are actually enjoying WoW minus the addiction/disease that you mention. Considering how casual the game can be, the majority have most likely avoided this affliction altogether.
But even for the casual gamers... 6 years? c'mon. that's still an addiction, the only difference is that they socilaize/craft/gather/AH/5-man/etc instead of raid. A casual smoker is still addicted to nicotine, he just forces himself to abstain for longers intervals. Pretty miserable way to live IMO. It's still not doing anything good for you so why "casually" do it either?
And those who you mentioned avoiding the addiction? Well I'm pretty sure they aren't the 4-6 year constantly (or frequently) subbed players I'm referring to. They're the ones who kicked it. So in essence I'm not really disagreeing with you
Your arguement is flawed. You are saying people that sub 4-6 years( because it does nothing good for you) are addicted and need help? There are a million things that people do that is not good for them. For everything people do there are those who take it too far. There are some people who exercise too much. Thats doing something good for themselves but over doing it. Besides this fact most people are casual players and never get as bad as the few you hear about.
Really. So because there are millions of things that aren't good for them, that makes them ok? You sound like one yourself, that's a classic denial line.
Me: smoking is bad for your health
smoker: I'm not worried about my health. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow
Me: Would you deliberately walk in front of a bus?
smoker: Of course not
Me: do you look before stepping out into the street?
smoker: Of course I do
You don't deliberately go looking for ways to affect your health, social life, finances etc for something that doesn't really do anything positive for you, so why stay playing the same game for 4-6 years? Because you are an addict.
I suppose next you're going to try and tell us that Blizzard (any MMO for that matter) doesn't deliberately create hooks that are specifically engineered to keep you subbing and the revenues from it for as long as they possibly can right? (they do, do the research yourself don't take my word for it) Is that good marketing strategy? Ok, yes it is. Last time I checked, tobacco companies use good marketing tools as well, but that's ok too right, because it's good capitalist thinking. Or that there aren't actually warcraft addiction clinics (there are)
There are so many jokes and wisecracks about 'warcrack' it's ridiculously common, so spare me the excuses about MY logic and don't be so naive.
So by your logic people should stop living in fear? I'm not arguing that people take stuff to fair and that companys like blizz don't profit. WHAT i'm saying is people have to practice self control. You can blame the companies all you want but in the end its the people who make the choice. Not only that but there are many governement polices are in place so that weak-mined people can be at least warned and not unfairly targeted. Warnings on ciggarettes and nutriential values on big mac boxes. Mcdonalds made me fat and WOW ruined my life won't cut it anymore. Take some responsiblity!
That's a pretty obvious statement but has nothing to do with the previous claim that WoW is deliberately engineered to create an addiction cycle, nor does it refute the fact that there are enough cases of it happening to warrant not only these studies, but full blown MMO addiction clinics. In fact it's been extensively documented. I make no claim to be a scientist. On the other hand the peopole behind the studies that have been conducted are. You'll have to forgive me if I lend far more credence to them than I do to the last few obviously unsubstantiated and uneducated opinions that were posted by the last few posters, some of which were not even literate. There's not even a contest. I fully realize that like any addict, statements like "you're an addict" are going to be met by these kinds of denial responses but it doesn't change the facts. It does however serve to illustrate the degree and level of brainwashing at play in the mind of an addict.
I think the frustration with the majority of the players, who play WoW casually, and actually have lives, is that the vocal minority hard core players want to impose their utopia upon the rest of the player base, and they have succeeded in suckering Blizz by doing so with Cata which I hope they come to their senses. I am inclined to agree with a comment a few pages back that Cata quests are designed for those under ten years of age, but to seriously play end game at 85 you need to be an adult, or at least in high school, given how intensive it can be. There are a few exceptions of very young minors who can excel, but other than that it is young adults who have the time to invest currently with the Cata design.
As it has been pointed out, the reason WotLK design was "easy" because Blizz didn't like how a small portion of the player population experienced all the money they invested in designing the content in the first place. Blizz doesn't like when the player base bypasses their content, and large resources invested into it (eg PVP gearing up versus PVE). Ironically PVP gearing once more is becoming the prefered choice over PVE for Cata, so we have the BC problem propping up again.
Let me also say that the hard core WoW players posting in this thread will hit a wall some point, and their unhealthy lifestyles will catch up to them. Akrios, of roguerogue.com, for example took a break from playing WoW and he has improved, and turned around his life.
"Now don’t let the above rant fool you, most of that was written in frustration a few months ago. The game obviously wasn’t all bad. As lame as this may sound, I learned a lot about people and life and had countless amounts of fun playing on and off over the years. At its best WoW was an engrossing experience and I feel like it had a lot to offer.
I probably had the most fun in this game making videos, it was a unique experience and it let me be creative. I made them because I enjoyed making them, BUT I WANT TO THANK EVERYONE FOR THEIR SUPPORT! I’ve had a ton of support both with videos and this site over the years, and I hope that I’ve been of some help and offered you some entertainment along the way.
Although I’ve always tried to keep my personal life separate from gaming, I will mention that things are going really well for me. I never felt that WoW stopped me from having a social life and that this was just a myth because so many gamers are social disasters, but it was a time investment and it did affect my lifestyle. Since I moved away from playing over this past year I’ve been going to the gym 4-5 times a week, done better in academics, smoked a lot less weed (although you might argue this isn’t a good thing), and I’ve gone from meaningless one nighters to more meaningful things. On the off chance you care, life is good.
So thanks for the support along the way, and helping to make my personal experience with the game more than it would have been. I don’t know what I’ll be doing next in terms of gaming, or if I’ll ever come back, I may continue to update the site intermittently regardless.
Is it really an addiction? The way I see it we are all addicted to MMO's in general. We are on these forums throwing words at each other. Just because people have been playing WoW for close to 6 because nothing after that has caught their interest. You're all still playing MMO's whether it be WoW, Rift, Aion, Maple Story or whatever.
I have been playing WoW for almost 6 years now and I have tried to get into other MMO's but nothing has kept me like WoW has.
That's a pretty obvious statement but has nothing to do with the previous claim that WoW is deliberately engineered to create an addiction cycle, nor does it refute the fact that there are enough cases of it happening to warrant not only these studies, but full blown MMO addiction clinics. In fact it's been extensively documented. I make no claim to be a scientist. On the other hand the peopole behind the studies that have been conducted are. You'll have to forgive me if I lend far more credence to them than I do to the last few obviously unsubstantiated and uneducated opinions that were posted by the last few posters, some of which were not even literate. There's not even a contest. I fully realize that like any addict, statements like "you're an addict" are going to be met by these kinds of denial responses but it doesn't change the facts. It does however serve to illustrate the degree and level of brainwashing at play in the mind of an addict.
As someone who actually read and analysed some of the articles (as in read some of the references/experiment methods) I find this assertion that 'WoW is deliberately engineered to create an addicton cycle' as an mis-informed statement (if not a lie).
If you really want to be informed and not throw generic statements like 'extensively documented' I'd suggest you actually read them.
Here's a good start that's nice and easy by a clinical psychologist with 21 years experience.
An increase in difficulty for end game content has been needed for a long time.
I think increasing the difficulty is a good idea. In WOTLK everyone was blazing through dungeons at high speeds and if you so much as hesitated you would be greeted by an onslaught of flaming. They really needed to slow people down a lot! It's hard to enjoy the game when you are in a group that feels like a ticking time bomb. A lot of those impatient elitests needed to be taken down a peg or two in my opinion. There was far too many of those in the previous Expansion.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
An increase in difficulty for end game content has been needed for a long time.
I think increasing the difficulty is a good idea. In WOTLK everyone was blazing through dungeons at high speeds and if you so much as hesitated you would be greeted by an onslaught of flaming. They really needed to slow people down a lot! It's hard to enjoy the game when you are in a group that feels like a ticking time bomb. A lot of those impatient elitests needed to be taken down a peg or two in my opinion. There was far too many of those in the previous Expansion.
Did you play at WOTLK or TBC release? Because people were NOT blowing through heroics. It was only until people were having gear levels of 240+ (mind you epics when the expansion came out were ilvl 200) that people start blowing through anything.
You didn't hit lvl 80 and start doing heroic Occulus (most people probably never even touched Occulus until lvl 264 stuff and after several instance nerfs). You weren't jumping into Old Kingdom with a pug. There were a handful of heroics you could pug at best. You would be lucky to get past the first pulls of Azjol Nerub. The fat guy in Naxxx (forgot his name) was a credible gear check.
People forget that they started to greatly outgear the instances that weren't buffed to match the increasing gear levels.
Anyone surprised by the perceived level of difficulty in cata clearly hasn't played an expansion at release before.
That's a pretty obvious statement but has nothing to do with the previous claim that WoW is deliberately engineered to create an addiction cycle, nor does it refute the fact that there are enough cases of it happening to warrant not only these studies, but full blown MMO addiction clinics. In fact it's been extensively documented. I make no claim to be a scientist. On the other hand the peopole behind the studies that have been conducted are. You'll have to forgive me if I lend far more credence to them than I do to the last few obviously unsubstantiated and uneducated opinions that were posted by the last few posters, some of which were not even literate. There's not even a contest. I fully realize that like any addict, statements like "you're an addict" are going to be met by these kinds of denial responses but it doesn't change the facts. It does however serve to illustrate the degree and level of brainwashing at play in the mind of an addict.
As someone who actually read and analysed some of the articles (as in read some of the references/experiment methods) I find this assertion that 'WoW is deliberately engineered to create an addicton cycle' as an mis-informed statement (if not a lie).
If you really want to be informed and not throw generic statements like 'extensively documented' I'd suggest you actually read them.
Here's a good start that's nice and easy by a clinical psychologist with 21 years experience.
Seriously? you cherry pick one doctor that agrees with you, and only partially at that, and call it a day? Who is Dr. Mark anyway? What are his credentials? What ground breaking publications has be published in noteworthy medical journals? I know people with 21 years of experience at my work too, and I find their competence sadly lacking. What about all the universities that have run studies on it? Numerous. Are you also aware that both the American Medical Association and American Psychiatric Association have been researching WoW addiction since 2007? Quite a few highly respected doctors sit on those panels. Published ones too. Perhaps you are also not aware that
"When online video game addicts feel the urge to play, their brain activity patterns look much like those of drug addicts craving their next dose, a study has found.
The findings suggest both types of obsessions “share the same neurobiological mechanism,” the study’s authors wrote in the Nov. 7 2008 online issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research."
Just wanted to point out that the Journal of Psychiatric Research is respected quite a bit more than the um... "escapist" lol.
You might be guessing by now that yeah, I have read them, unlike you, who just humped into this thread, saw my post, and spent about 5 minutes if that on google looking for one guy who agrees with you. If there's any lies to be had it's the first sentence of your last post here. Just another FYI, before making accusations like that you might also want to take a look at John Hopson's article entitled Behavioral Game Design. John Hopson is a games researcher at Microsoft Game Studios.
How you can sit there with a straight face and try to claim that the findings of addiction in WoW don't outnumber those that don't by a significant margin is baffling if not utterly ludicrous. Was your post a joke post or are you trying to be serious?
Threads like this really validate my decision to quit this addiction / disease. Watching some of you, especially you angry wow apologist posters, remind me of every poor pathetic drug junkie I've ever seen on the streets or TV. Wake up kids, this game is bad for you, and both your mental and phsycal health. As for those angry hardcore raiders that are yelling at you OP, don't argue with these guys. They are heavily under an unhealthy (and medically demonstrated and documented) addiction. Rather than argue with them, you really should be more sympathetic. These guys really need some help from you and I because they need to break this cycle. Think about it. Think about the hours that go into a hardcore raider's schedule every week. Think about how much time that has wasted over the course of a year. Now think about that over 6 years of your life which you'll never get back that has done nothing whatsoever to improve your real life. That's not a hobby or a pastime, that's an unhealty addiction.
You know, some people are actually enjoying WoW minus the addiction/disease that you mention. Considering how casual the game can be, the majority have most likely avoided this affliction altogether.
But even for the casual gamers... 6 years? c'mon. that's still an addiction, the only difference is that they socilaize/craft/gather/AH/5-man/etc instead of raid. A casual smoker is still addicted to nicotine, he just forces himself to abstain for longers intervals. Pretty miserable way to live IMO. It's still not doing anything good for you so why "casually" do it either?
And those who you mentioned avoiding the addiction? Well I'm pretty sure they aren't the 4-6 year constantly (or frequently) subbed players I'm referring to. They're the ones who kicked it. So in essence I'm not really disagreeing with you
Your arguement is flawed. You are saying people that sub 4-6 years( because it does nothing good for you) are addicted and need help? There are a million things that people do that is not good for them. For everything people do there are those who take it too far. There are some people who exercise too much. Thats doing something good for themselves but over doing it. Besides this fact most people are casual players and never get as bad as the few you hear about.
Really. So because there are millions of things that aren't good for them, that makes them ok? You sound like one yourself, that's a classic denial line.
Me: smoking is bad for your health
smoker: I'm not worried about my health. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow
Me: Would you deliberately walk in front of a bus?
smoker: Of course not
Me: do you look before stepping out into the street?
smoker: Of course I do
You don't deliberately go looking for ways to affect your health, social life, finances etc for something that doesn't really do anything positive for you, so why stay playing the same game for 4-6 years? Because you are an addict.
I suppose next you're going to try and tell us that Blizzard (any MMO for that matter) doesn't deliberately create hooks that are specifically engineered to keep you subbing and the revenues from it for as long as they possibly can right? (they do, do the research yourself don't take my word for it) Is that good marketing strategy? Ok, yes it is. Last time I checked, tobacco companies use good marketing tools as well, but that's ok too right, because it's good capitalist thinking. Or that there aren't actually warcraft addiction clinics (there are)
There are so many jokes and wisecracks about 'warcrack' it's ridiculously common, so spare me the excuses about MY logic and don't be so naive.
So by your logic people should stop living in fear? I'm not arguing that people take stuff to fair and that companys like blizz don't profit. WHAT i'm saying is people have to practice self control. You can blame the companies all you want but in the end its the people who make the choice. Not only that but there are many governement polices are in place so that weak-mined people can be at least warned and not unfairly targeted. Warnings on ciggarettes and nutriential values on big mac boxes. Mcdonalds made me fat and WOW ruined my life won't cut it anymore. Take some responsiblity!
That's a pretty obvious statement but has nothing to do with the previous claim that WoW is deliberately engineered to create an addiction cycle, nor does it refute the fact that there are enough cases of it happening to warrant not only these studies, but full blown MMO addiction clinics. In fact it's been extensively documented. I make no claim to be a scientist. On the other hand the peopole behind the studies that have been conducted are. You'll have to forgive me if I lend far more credence to them than I do to the last few obviously unsubstantiated and uneducated opinions that were posted by the last few posters, some of which were not even literate. There's not even a contest. I fully realize that like any addict, statements like "you're an addict" are going to be met by these kinds of denial responses but it doesn't change the facts. It does however serve to illustrate the degree and level of brainwashing at play in the mind of an addict.
*Sigh* you using a lot of words but not really saying what you mean or what your point is. Are you saying that blizz is solely to blame for people who are addicted? If that is what your saying than your wrong. People have to have some responsibility.
Also I'm confused about your definition of addiction. Is a person an addict if they play for 6 years casually, have a family, and a career that is never compromised? I never said there were not addicts. What I'm arguing is they make up a smaller percentage than your making it out to be.
I'm about to hit 85, and i just don't see a point in playing after that to just run the same dungeons over and over for the next year and a half till they put out another expansion.
Since the expansion launched i leveled up a new char in the old world to see the new 1-60 content and leveled by 80 to 85 and i'm sitting here giong, ok now what?
I just don't care about running the same dungeons and raids over and over again. So at most i got maybe 3 weeks of content out of the expansion.
This has been the entire issue all along. Blizz got lazy re-hashing the same exact re-packaged crap while the people kept saying "thank you Blizz, may we have another" I for one grew sick and tired of the same content over, and over, and over again and closed my account, glad to see others are finally seeing the light.
For what it is worth I want to thank blizzard for finally breaking my addiction to mmo's. I don't know why it took this long (started around Everquest PoP) but after this expansion and seeing nothing more than a huge time sink to gain maybe 1% in stats and power I am finally done with the entire genre. SWTOR might have the ability to suck me back in but we will see (I highly doubt it). I would post this on the blizzard forums but my account is cancelled and I can no longer post so this will just have to do.
An increase in difficulty for end game content has been needed for a long time.
I think increasing the difficulty is a good idea. In WOTLK everyone was blazing through dungeons at high speeds and if you so much as hesitated you would be greeted by an onslaught of flaming. They really needed to slow people down a lot! It's hard to enjoy the game when you are in a group that feels like a ticking time bomb. A lot of those impatient elitests needed to be taken down a peg or two in my opinion. There was far too many of those in the previous Expansion.
Did you play at WOTLK or TBC release? Because people were NOT blowing through heroics. It was only until people were having gear levels of 240+ (mind you epics when the expansion came out were ilvl 200) that people start blowing through anything.
You didn't hit lvl 80 and start doing heroic Occulus (most people probably never even touched Occulus until lvl 264 stuff and after several instance nerfs). You weren't jumping into Old Kingdom with a pug. There were a handful of heroics you could pug at best. You would be lucky to get past the first pulls of Azjol Nerub. The fat guy in Naxxx (forgot his name) was a credible gear check.
People forget that they started to greatly outgear the instances that weren't buffed to match the increasing gear levels.
Anyone surprised by the perceived level of difficulty in cata clearly hasn't played an expansion at release before.
ilvl 264 for occulus? Dude, ilvl 264 wasn't introduced in the game until ulduar or toc... But I agree, when wotlk was released, the dungeons and raids was geardependant. Which you didn't really noticed in the release of icc and random lfg, because in a week you could stand in allmost full t9 emblem gear. But also, they did nerf the older wotlk content. And then boosted it in the release of 4.0 patch to work with the buffed dmg. And the reason for people not touching occulus was that it was painfully dull and long. That was also why they put a few extra emblems in the chest after killing the last boss, to make it worth the time. And yes, you still got extra jp in the chest, I checked and got extra 20-30 jp's from the looted bag.
That's a pretty obvious statement but has nothing to do with the previous claim that WoW is deliberately engineered to create an addiction cycle, nor does it refute the fact that there are enough cases of it happening to warrant not only these studies, but full blown MMO addiction clinics. In fact it's been extensively documented. I make no claim to be a scientist. On the other hand the peopole behind the studies that have been conducted are. You'll have to forgive me if I lend far more credence to them than I do to the last few obviously unsubstantiated and uneducated opinions that were posted by the last few posters, some of which were not even literate. There's not even a contest. I fully realize that like any addict, statements like "you're an addict" are going to be met by these kinds of denial responses but it doesn't change the facts. It does however serve to illustrate the degree and level of brainwashing at play in the mind of an addict.
As someone who actually read and analysed some of the articles (as in read some of the references/experiment methods) I find this assertion that 'WoW is deliberately engineered to create an addicton cycle' as an mis-informed statement (if not a lie).
If you really want to be informed and not throw generic statements like 'extensively documented' I'd suggest you actually read them.
Here's a good start that's nice and easy by a clinical psychologist with 21 years experience.
Seriously? you cherry pick one doctor that agrees with you, and only partially at that, and call it a day? Who is Dr. Mark anyway? What are his credentials? What ground breaking publications has be published in noteworthy medical journals? I know people with 21 years of experience at my work too, and I find their competence sadly lacking. What about all the universities that have run studies on it? Numerous. Are you also aware that both the American Medical Association and American Psychiatric Association have been researching WoW addiction since 2007? Quite a few highly respected doctors sit on those panels. Published ones too. Perhaps you are also not aware that
"When online video game addicts feel the urge to play, their brain activity patterns look much like those of drug addicts craving their next dose, a study has found.
The findings suggest both types of obsessions “share the same neurobiological mechanism,” the study’s authors wrote in the Nov. 7 2008 online issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research."
Just wanted to point out that the Journal of Psychiatric Research is respected quite a bit more than the um... "escapist" lol.
You might be guessing by now that yeah, I have read them, unlike you, who just humped into this thread, saw my post, and spent about 5 minutes if that on google looking for one guy who agrees with you. If there's any lies to be had it's the first sentence of your last post here. Just another FYI, before making accusations like that you might also want to take a look at John Hopson's article entitled Behavioral Game Design. John Hopson is a games researcher at Microsoft Game Studios.
How you can sit there with a straight face and try to claim that the findings of addiction in WoW don't outnumber those that don't by a significant margin is baffling if not utterly ludicrous. Was your post a joke post or are you trying to be serious?
I'm sorry, so the fact that 'in your line of work' those who have '21 years experience lack competence' (that you meet) is related to this discussion... how? logic?
Those who I meet/work with in my line of work (IT, developer), 21 years exp carries a ton of competence and skill.
No, that link was to show you that anything can be called 'addictive' by professionals.
"any pleasurable activity, constantly reinforced, will do the same thing."
Like I said before, I'm addicted to junk food, TV, DVDs, going out with friends and listening to music.
If you really want to take the point of view that 'WoW is deliberately engineered to create an addiction cycle' you'll have to accept that everyone is addicted to 'something' then.
I might be confusing that study you posted with something else, but isn't that the one where they only had 10 samples?
And like 6-7 exhibited the behaviour they were looking for?
Gdemami - Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
That's a pretty obvious statement but has nothing to do with the previous claim that WoW is deliberately engineered to create an addiction cycle, nor does it refute the fact that there are enough cases of it happening to warrant not only these studies, but full blown MMO addiction clinics. In fact it's been extensively documented. I make no claim to be a scientist. On the other hand the peopole behind the studies that have been conducted are. You'll have to forgive me if I lend far more credence to them than I do to the last few obviously unsubstantiated and uneducated opinions that were posted by the last few posters, some of which were not even literate. There's not even a contest. I fully realize that like any addict, statements like "you're an addict" are going to be met by these kinds of denial responses but it doesn't change the facts. It does however serve to illustrate the degree and level of brainwashing at play in the mind of an addict.
As someone who actually read and analysed some of the articles (as in read some of the references/experiment methods) I find this assertion that 'WoW is deliberately engineered to create an addicton cycle' as an mis-informed statement (if not a lie).
If you really want to be informed and not throw generic statements like 'extensively documented' I'd suggest you actually read them.
Here's a good start that's nice and easy by a clinical psychologist with 21 years experience.
Seriously? you cherry pick one doctor that agrees with you, and only partially at that, and call it a day? Who is Dr. Mark anyway? What are his credentials? What ground breaking publications has be published in noteworthy medical journals? I know people with 21 years of experience at my work too, and I find their competence sadly lacking. What about all the universities that have run studies on it? Numerous. Are you also aware that both the American Medical Association and American Psychiatric Association have been researching WoW addiction since 2007? Quite a few highly respected doctors sit on those panels. Published ones too. Perhaps you are also not aware that
"When online video game addicts feel the urge to play, their brain activity patterns look much like those of drug addicts craving their next dose, a study has found.
The findings suggest both types of obsessions “share the same neurobiological mechanism,” the study’s authors wrote in the Nov. 7 2008 online issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research."
Just wanted to point out that the Journal of Psychiatric Research is respected quite a bit more than the um... "escapist" lol.
You might be guessing by now that yeah, I have read them, unlike you, who just humped into this thread, saw my post, and spent about 5 minutes if that on google looking for one guy who agrees with you. If there's any lies to be had it's the first sentence of your last post here. Just another FYI, before making accusations like that you might also want to take a look at John Hopson's article entitled Behavioral Game Design. John Hopson is a games researcher at Microsoft Game Studios.
How you can sit there with a straight face and try to claim that the findings of addiction in WoW don't outnumber those that don't by a significant margin is baffling if not utterly ludicrous. Was your post a joke post or are you trying to be serious?
I'm sorry, so the fact that 'in your line of work' those who have '21 years experience lack competence' (that you meet) is related to this discussion... how? logic?
Those who I meet/work with in my line of work (IT, developer), 21 years exp carries a ton of competence and skill.
No, that link was to show you that anything can be called 'addictive' by professionals.
"any pleasurable activity, constantly reinforced, will do the same thing."
Like I said before, I'm addicted to junk food, TV, DVDs, going out with friends and listening to music.
If you really want to take the point of view that 'WoW is deliberately engineered to create an addiction cycle' you'll have to accept that everyone is addicted to 'something' then.
I might be confusing that study you posted with something else, but isn't that the one where they only had 10 samples?
And like 6-7 exhibited the behaviour they were looking for?
Seriously, ofc a computergame company want you addicted to their game. How else would they make money if noone was there to play it. It is all about YOU, that YOU can control your self. It's not blizz who controls how much you play. It's you. And you can't say addicted in that matter, we all are addicted in some way to something. Blizz provides you with a game constantly evolving to keep up the interest in the game, if they wouldn't there would be no 12 mil players left playing world wide.
Blizzard have provided us with one of the best mmo's out there today, a game which maybe don't suite everyone. I have stoped playing, because I have grown tired of the whole game, but that doesn't give me the right to say that others should. It's not upto me to make other people stop playing just because I find it incredebly boring and repetive, that just me who think that personally, and I don't demand anyone else to think like that. I have found my new drug, Aion. Yeah, it's a grinder, but I like that, it makes it so much more challenging, it's animestyled, I like that also because I love anime.
I also like wow, will not play it, but I like it. The lore is wonderful, the pve is/was amusing, the pvp was kind of unbalanced from time to time, but hey, that is also a issue in aion:) Damn scouts...
However, the point is, there is no point to argue about a game being addictive or not... ofc a company wants you to keep playing it, but what game isn't addictive? I have friends addicted to Black Ops, Aion, CounterStrike(yeah, hilirous right?) and many more... So wow isn't the only one, it's not even the biggest when it comes to how many playing it, in Asia there is mmo's with alot more players playing. Think I read something about a game there who had like around 50 mil players... Don't quote me on that, not sure on that one, just something I recall reading in ANOTHER FORUM ARGUING ABOUT WOW AND WHAT NOT... but ofc, we all know, it's probably 10 mil players and 40 mil bots;)
Edit: Probably quoted the wrong person here, but hey, who the F cares?
That's a pretty obvious statement but has nothing to do with the previous claim that WoW is deliberately engineered to create an addiction cycle, nor does it refute the fact that there are enough cases of it happening to warrant not only these studies, but full blown MMO addiction clinics. In fact it's been extensively documented. I make no claim to be a scientist. On the other hand the peopole behind the studies that have been conducted are. You'll have to forgive me if I lend far more credence to them than I do to the last few obviously unsubstantiated and uneducated opinions that were posted by the last few posters, some of which were not even literate. There's not even a contest. I fully realize that like any addict, statements like "you're an addict" are going to be met by these kinds of denial responses but it doesn't change the facts. It does however serve to illustrate the degree and level of brainwashing at play in the mind of an addict.
As someone who actually read and analysed some of the articles (as in read some of the references/experiment methods) I find this assertion that 'WoW is deliberately engineered to create an addicton cycle' as an mis-informed statement (if not a lie).
If you really want to be informed and not throw generic statements like 'extensively documented' I'd suggest you actually read them.
Here's a good start that's nice and easy by a clinical psychologist with 21 years experience.
Seriously? you cherry pick one doctor that agrees with you, and only partially at that, and call it a day? Who is Dr. Mark anyway? What are his credentials? What ground breaking publications has be published in noteworthy medical journals? I know people with 21 years of experience at my work too, and I find their competence sadly lacking. What about all the universities that have run studies on it? Numerous. Are you also aware that both the American Medical Association and American Psychiatric Association have been researching WoW addiction since 2007? Quite a few highly respected doctors sit on those panels. Published ones too. Perhaps you are also not aware that
"When online video game addicts feel the urge to play, their brain activity patterns look much like those of drug addicts craving their next dose, a study has found.
The findings suggest both types of obsessions “share the same neurobiological mechanism,” the study’s authors wrote in the Nov. 7 2008 online issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research."
Just wanted to point out that the Journal of Psychiatric Research is respected quite a bit more than the um... "escapist" lol.
You might be guessing by now that yeah, I have read them, unlike you, who just humped into this thread, saw my post, and spent about 5 minutes if that on google looking for one guy who agrees with you. If there's any lies to be had it's the first sentence of your last post here. Just another FYI, before making accusations like that you might also want to take a look at John Hopson's article entitled Behavioral Game Design. John Hopson is a games researcher at Microsoft Game Studios.
How you can sit there with a straight face and try to claim that the findings of addiction in WoW don't outnumber those that don't by a significant margin is baffling if not utterly ludicrous. Was your post a joke post or are you trying to be serious?
I'm sorry, so the fact that 'in your line of work' those who have '21 years experience lack competence' (that you meet) is related to this discussion... how? logic?
Those who I meet/work with in my line of work (IT, developer), 21 years exp carries a ton of competence and skill.
No, that link was to show you that anything can be called 'addictive' by professionals.
"any pleasurable activity, constantly reinforced, will do the same thing."
Like I said before, I'm addicted to junk food, TV, DVDs, going out with friends and listening to music.
If you really want to take the point of view that 'WoW is deliberately engineered to create an addiction cycle' you'll have to accept that everyone is addicted to 'something' then.
I might be confusing that study you posted with something else, but isn't that the one where they only had 10 samples?
And like 6-7 exhibited the behaviour they were looking for?
You're the one who pointed out that 21 years experience makes you a credible source. It doesn't. 21 years experience in ANY field makes you have... 21 years of experience. MANY people in a field that loing will be very good at it. But not all. You also dodged my question about "Dr. Mark's" credentials
And the study I posted, (which one?) even if what you're claiming is true (you never provided your sources or anything to back you) again, nitpicking one example out of hundreds. But yet dodging the fact that big heavyweights like the AMA and APA, and numerous universities are also conducting research. Dodge, dodge, dodge. Are you sure you work for IT and not a politician?
Lastly your idea that anything can be called an addiction is... well I can't be intellectual about this one. It was just a ridiculously stupid thing to say. Don't pass of as fact what is actually only your opinion, unsubstantiated by any facts.
All your counter arguments are nitpicks of small points, yet I notice you're dodging the main questions and issues. Where I come from that's called grasping at straws. You might want to consider going back to the lightweight division.
Comments
Yeah that is pretty borked. And then the Tol Barad fiasco. It almost feels like pvp was a complete oversight by the developers. They thought up some ideas but then never tested them out.
Upon winning a rated Battleground, rating, wins, and Conquest Points are awarded and display properly.
Negative amounts of Conquest Points can no longer be awarded after a match win.
Patched back in Dec, around 10 days after the first rated PvP was introduced. As I remember that was even before the second week of rated BG's ended.
I consider you are not playing this game at all and picked up something on the forums. As usual.
Really. So because there are millions of things that aren't good for them, that makes them ok? You sound like one yourself, that's a classic denial line.
Me: smoking is bad for your health
smoker: I'm not worried about my health. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow
Me: Would you deliberately walk in front of a bus?
smoker: Of course not
Me: do you look before stepping out into the street?
smoker: Of course I do
You don't deliberately go looking for ways to affect your health, social life, finances etc for something that doesn't really do anything positive for you, so why stay playing the same game for 4-6 years? Because you are an addict.
I suppose next you're going to try and tell us that Blizzard (any MMO for that matter) doesn't deliberately create hooks that are specifically engineered to keep you subbing and the revenues from it for as long as they possibly can right? (they do, do the research yourself don't take my word for it) Is that good marketing strategy? Ok, yes it is. Last time I checked, tobacco companies use good marketing tools as well, but that's ok too right, because it's good capitalist thinking. Or that there aren't actually warcraft addiction clinics (there are)
There are so many jokes and wisecracks about 'warcrack' it's ridiculously common, so spare me the excuses about MY logic and don't be so naive.
Welcome to a new expansion. This game isn't more difficult than it was in Burning Crusade or Vanilla. You have horrible gear and your worried about wiping in dungeons, needing to learn fights and how to play well? Boy, oh boy. Wrath of the Lich King was way too easy and I don't care if you're casual or hardcore, there's no excuse for that ease that it had.
Tol Barad has a PvP zone and a PvE zone. You need rep for what? Blue items? A tabard that takes four days to get? Mounts? are you kidding? It's not even worth talking about.. and it takes no time at all to get exalted with it. The dailies are there for you to make money and right now they are pretty difficult, but give me a break. It's an awesome "RVR" zone and I absolutely would say the quests are far better than "weekly" Wintergrasp quests.
This is not WoW's "swan song", it's a revival of old tactics and enjoyment. Wrath of the Lich King was the worst experience I've had in my six years of playing WoW and in my sixteen years of Warcraft. Cataclysm, which in my opinion ruined the leveling experience (which has been steady trend since patch 2.3, that nerfed vanilla leveling), the dungeons, heroics, raids and rated PvP experience is a lot better.
All I ask is they fix Priest.
If doing something that 'negatively' affects my social life/finances/health for years is considered an addiction I've been addicted to my TV/DVD/VHS for all of my life.
Or Steam/GOG for the last 3 years.
Or going out to town with my friends for god knows how long.
Or even eating junk food for all of my life!
Yeah, I'm addicted to so many things! HELP! /sarcasm
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
So by your logic people should stop living in fear? I'm not arguing that people take stuff to fair and that companys like blizz don't profit. WHAT i'm saying is people have to practice self control. You can blame the companies all you want but in the end its the people who make the choice. Not only that but there are many governement polices are in place so that weak-mined people can be at least warned and not unfairly targeted. Warnings on ciggarettes and nutriential values on big mac boxes. Mcdonalds made me fat and WOW ruined my life won't cut it anymore. Take some responsiblity!
I love how people blame a game for their obesession problems. If it wasn't wow it would be something else. Just because you had a problem doesn't mean everyone else does or that it is the fault of the game.
I'm well aware that WoW is suppose to be more than just running the next dungeon and raid... but unfortunately that's the focus of the game. There's very little alternative gameplay advancement. Sure there are a few mini-games, archeology being the newest of them, but in the end the game boils down to chasing gear from rep grinds -> dungeons -> heroics -> raids. There are no appearance slots to give chasing aesthetic gear more meaning, there's no guild or player housing, no alternative advancement system, etc, etc. So unless Blizzard is going to start adding these things, they might as well fix their end-game PvE curve to be more pallatable to the average player, either by adding stepping stone content between reg 85 dungeons and heroics, or making heroics less painful in general... and possibly bumping them up in difficulty later.
As per the WOTLK arguement... path of least resistence. Most people didn't bother with hardmodes because they didn't have to. Sure you got better gear, but that gear mostly existed to do more hardmodes, there was no additional content to aim for beyond ICC. To even start ICC hardmode you needed to pretty much clear ICC on reg mode already, and by the time most players had done this, the expansion was close, and most people stopped raiding altogether due to the futility of the fact that their gear advancement would be neutered by gear obtained leveling to 85.
First, it's good that the game got harder, maybe now we will get rid of the so called wotlk-generation.
Second, it's funny to see people think it's a grinder now, when it has allways been a grinder. "NO IT HAS NEVER BEEN A GRINDER AS LONG AS I HAVE PLAYED" Well, sorry, you have just replaced the word grind with farm... but replacing a word doesn't make it less of a grinder. What am I on about? Well, think back, how did we get the gear? how did we get the rep? yeah, through farming aka grinding. But what would the game be without grinding? Kind of empty imo. They need to keep you occupied, yes? And grind is the best way. They just coat sugar on the grind and call it farming instead. People rant about Aion being a grinder, but still... So is WoW. And as equally bad grinder too. They have only removed the grinding from the leveling. Because back in vanilla, wow was also a grindleveling game. Took ages to get to 60. Now they make it all about endgame, but still you have to grind, farm, for gear and rep. As in any other game in the genre. "You don't have to grind when you pvp!" No? So... what is this conquestpoints about? What is Honorpoints about? Yeah, you have to grind the BG's to get HP and Conquestpoints. So even there it is a grinder. Sorry, you can't escape the fact that you are actually playing a grinder.
I thought people wanted the game to be harder? But now that it's finally harder, people complain.
Totalbiscuit, what can you say about this? = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lglHxkF4fAA
That's a pretty obvious statement but has nothing to do with the previous claim that WoW is deliberately engineered to create an addiction cycle, nor does it refute the fact that there are enough cases of it happening to warrant not only these studies, but full blown MMO addiction clinics. In fact it's been extensively documented. I make no claim to be a scientist. On the other hand the peopole behind the studies that have been conducted are. You'll have to forgive me if I lend far more credence to them than I do to the last few obviously unsubstantiated and uneducated opinions that were posted by the last few posters, some of which were not even literate. There's not even a contest. I fully realize that like any addict, statements like "you're an addict" are going to be met by these kinds of denial responses but it doesn't change the facts. It does however serve to illustrate the degree and level of brainwashing at play in the mind of an addict.
I think the frustration with the majority of the players, who play WoW casually, and actually have lives, is that the vocal minority hard core players want to impose their utopia upon the rest of the player base, and they have succeeded in suckering Blizz by doing so with Cata which I hope they come to their senses. I am inclined to agree with a comment a few pages back that Cata quests are designed for those under ten years of age, but to seriously play end game at 85 you need to be an adult, or at least in high school, given how intensive it can be. There are a few exceptions of very young minors who can excel, but other than that it is young adults who have the time to invest currently with the Cata design.
As it has been pointed out, the reason WotLK design was "easy" because Blizz didn't like how a small portion of the player population experienced all the money they invested in designing the content in the first place. Blizz doesn't like when the player base bypasses their content, and large resources invested into it (eg PVP gearing up versus PVE). Ironically PVP gearing once more is becoming the prefered choice over PVE for Cata, so we have the BC problem propping up again.
Let me also say that the hard core WoW players posting in this thread will hit a wall some point, and their unhealthy lifestyles will catch up to them. Akrios, of roguerogue.com, for example took a break from playing WoW and he has improved, and turned around his life.
http://roguerogue.com/2010/07/25/formal-farewell/
"Now don’t let the above rant fool you, most of that was written in frustration a few months ago. The game obviously wasn’t all bad. As lame as this may sound, I learned a lot about people and life and had countless amounts of fun playing on and off over the years. At its best WoW was an engrossing experience and I feel like it had a lot to offer.
I probably had the most fun in this game making videos, it was a unique experience and it let me be creative. I made them because I enjoyed making them, BUT I WANT TO THANK EVERYONE FOR THEIR SUPPORT! I’ve had a ton of support both with videos and this site over the years, and I hope that I’ve been of some help and offered you some entertainment along the way.
Although I’ve always tried to keep my personal life separate from gaming, I will mention that things are going really well for me. I never felt that WoW stopped me from having a social life and that this was just a myth because so many gamers are social disasters, but it was a time investment and it did affect my lifestyle. Since I moved away from playing over this past year I’ve been going to the gym 4-5 times a week, done better in academics, smoked a lot less weed (although you might argue this isn’t a good thing), and I’ve gone from meaningless one nighters to more meaningful things. On the off chance you care, life is good.
So thanks for the support along the way, and helping to make my personal experience with the game more than it would have been. I don’t know what I’ll be doing next in terms of gaming, or if I’ll ever come back, I may continue to update the site intermittently regardless.
Thank you and good luck."
Is it really an addiction? The way I see it we are all addicted to MMO's in general. We are on these forums throwing words at each other. Just because people have been playing WoW for close to 6 because nothing after that has caught their interest. You're all still playing MMO's whether it be WoW, Rift, Aion, Maple Story or whatever.
I have been playing WoW for almost 6 years now and I have tried to get into other MMO's but nothing has kept me like WoW has.
As someone who actually read and analysed some of the articles (as in read some of the references/experiment methods) I find this assertion that 'WoW is deliberately engineered to create an addicton cycle' as an mis-informed statement (if not a lie).
If you really want to be informed and not throw generic statements like 'extensively documented' I'd suggest you actually read them.
Here's a good start that's nice and easy by a clinical psychologist with 21 years experience.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/ask-dr-mark/7679-Ask-Dr-Mark-1
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I think increasing the difficulty is a good idea. In WOTLK everyone was blazing through dungeons at high speeds and if you so much as hesitated you would be greeted by an onslaught of flaming. They really needed to slow people down a lot! It's hard to enjoy the game when you are in a group that feels like a ticking time bomb. A lot of those impatient elitests needed to be taken down a peg or two in my opinion. There was far too many of those in the previous Expansion.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
Did you play at WOTLK or TBC release? Because people were NOT blowing through heroics. It was only until people were having gear levels of 240+ (mind you epics when the expansion came out were ilvl 200) that people start blowing through anything.
You didn't hit lvl 80 and start doing heroic Occulus (most people probably never even touched Occulus until lvl 264 stuff and after several instance nerfs). You weren't jumping into Old Kingdom with a pug. There were a handful of heroics you could pug at best. You would be lucky to get past the first pulls of Azjol Nerub. The fat guy in Naxxx (forgot his name) was a credible gear check.
People forget that they started to greatly outgear the instances that weren't buffed to match the increasing gear levels.
Anyone surprised by the perceived level of difficulty in cata clearly hasn't played an expansion at release before.
Seriously? you cherry pick one doctor that agrees with you, and only partially at that, and call it a day? Who is Dr. Mark anyway? What are his credentials? What ground breaking publications has be published in noteworthy medical journals? I know people with 21 years of experience at my work too, and I find their competence sadly lacking. What about all the universities that have run studies on it? Numerous. Are you also aware that both the American Medical Association and American Psychiatric Association have been researching WoW addiction since 2007? Quite a few highly respected doctors sit on those panels. Published ones too. Perhaps you are also not aware that
"When online video game addicts feel the urge to play, their brain activity patterns look much like those of drug addicts craving their next dose, a study has found.
The findings suggest both types of obsessions “share the same neurobiological mechanism,” the study’s authors wrote in the Nov. 7 2008 online issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research."
Just wanted to point out that the Journal of Psychiatric Research is respected quite a bit more than the um... "escapist" lol.
You might be guessing by now that yeah, I have read them, unlike you, who just humped into this thread, saw my post, and spent about 5 minutes if that on google looking for one guy who agrees with you. If there's any lies to be had it's the first sentence of your last post here. Just another FYI, before making accusations like that you might also want to take a look at John Hopson's article entitled Behavioral Game Design. John Hopson is a games researcher at Microsoft Game Studios.
How you can sit there with a straight face and try to claim that the findings of addiction in WoW don't outnumber those that don't by a significant margin is baffling if not utterly ludicrous. Was your post a joke post or are you trying to be serious?
*Sigh* you using a lot of words but not really saying what you mean or what your point is. Are you saying that blizz is solely to blame for people who are addicted? If that is what your saying than your wrong. People have to have some responsibility.
Also I'm confused about your definition of addiction. Is a person an addict if they play for 6 years casually, have a family, and a career that is never compromised? I never said there were not addicts. What I'm arguing is they make up a smaller percentage than your making it out to be.
This has been the entire issue all along. Blizz got lazy re-hashing the same exact re-packaged crap while the people kept saying "thank you Blizz, may we have another" I for one grew sick and tired of the same content over, and over, and over again and closed my account, glad to see others are finally seeing the light.
For what it is worth I want to thank blizzard for finally breaking my addiction to mmo's. I don't know why it took this long (started around Everquest PoP) but after this expansion and seeing nothing more than a huge time sink to gain maybe 1% in stats and power I am finally done with the entire genre. SWTOR might have the ability to suck me back in but we will see (I highly doubt it). I would post this on the blizzard forums but my account is cancelled and I can no longer post so this will just have to do.
To those who still play I wish you all the best.
wow people complaining wow is hard..and you have to work for something..imagine that..working hard and doing a grind ..lol WoW is truely full of wow
ilvl 264 for occulus? Dude, ilvl 264 wasn't introduced in the game until ulduar or toc... But I agree, when wotlk was released, the dungeons and raids was geardependant. Which you didn't really noticed in the release of icc and random lfg, because in a week you could stand in allmost full t9 emblem gear. But also, they did nerf the older wotlk content. And then boosted it in the release of 4.0 patch to work with the buffed dmg. And the reason for people not touching occulus was that it was painfully dull and long. That was also why they put a few extra emblems in the chest after killing the last boss, to make it worth the time. And yes, you still got extra jp in the chest, I checked and got extra 20-30 jp's from the looted bag.
I'm sorry, so the fact that 'in your line of work' those who have '21 years experience lack competence' (that you meet) is related to this discussion... how? logic?
Those who I meet/work with in my line of work (IT, developer), 21 years exp carries a ton of competence and skill.
No, that link was to show you that anything can be called 'addictive' by professionals.
"any pleasurable activity, constantly reinforced, will do the same thing."
Like I said before, I'm addicted to junk food, TV, DVDs, going out with friends and listening to music.
If you really want to take the point of view that 'WoW is deliberately engineered to create an addiction cycle' you'll have to accept that everyone is addicted to 'something' then.
I might be confusing that study you posted with something else, but isn't that the one where they only had 10 samples?
And like 6-7 exhibited the behaviour they were looking for?
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Seriously, ofc a computergame company want you addicted to their game. How else would they make money if noone was there to play it. It is all about YOU, that YOU can control your self. It's not blizz who controls how much you play. It's you. And you can't say addicted in that matter, we all are addicted in some way to something. Blizz provides you with a game constantly evolving to keep up the interest in the game, if they wouldn't there would be no 12 mil players left playing world wide.
Blizzard have provided us with one of the best mmo's out there today, a game which maybe don't suite everyone. I have stoped playing, because I have grown tired of the whole game, but that doesn't give me the right to say that others should. It's not upto me to make other people stop playing just because I find it incredebly boring and repetive, that just me who think that personally, and I don't demand anyone else to think like that. I have found my new drug, Aion. Yeah, it's a grinder, but I like that, it makes it so much more challenging, it's animestyled, I like that also because I love anime.
I also like wow, will not play it, but I like it. The lore is wonderful, the pve is/was amusing, the pvp was kind of unbalanced from time to time, but hey, that is also a issue in aion:) Damn scouts...
However, the point is, there is no point to argue about a game being addictive or not... ofc a company wants you to keep playing it, but what game isn't addictive? I have friends addicted to Black Ops, Aion, CounterStrike(yeah, hilirous right?) and many more... So wow isn't the only one, it's not even the biggest when it comes to how many playing it, in Asia there is mmo's with alot more players playing. Think I read something about a game there who had like around 50 mil players... Don't quote me on that, not sure on that one, just something I recall reading in ANOTHER FORUM ARGUING ABOUT WOW AND WHAT NOT... but ofc, we all know, it's probably 10 mil players and 40 mil bots;)
Edit: Probably quoted the wrong person here, but hey, who the F cares?
You're the one who pointed out that 21 years experience makes you a credible source. It doesn't. 21 years experience in ANY field makes you have... 21 years of experience. MANY people in a field that loing will be very good at it. But not all. You also dodged my question about "Dr. Mark's" credentials
And the study I posted, (which one?) even if what you're claiming is true (you never provided your sources or anything to back you) again, nitpicking one example out of hundreds. But yet dodging the fact that big heavyweights like the AMA and APA, and numerous universities are also conducting research. Dodge, dodge, dodge. Are you sure you work for IT and not a politician?
Lastly your idea that anything can be called an addiction is... well I can't be intellectual about this one. It was just a ridiculously stupid thing to say. Don't pass of as fact what is actually only your opinion, unsubstantiated by any facts.
All your counter arguments are nitpicks of small points, yet I notice you're dodging the main questions and issues. Where I come from that's called grasping at straws. You might want to consider going back to the lightweight division.