Wowbservations

2008 November 6
by Vanir

I have been playing World of Warcraft now for a few weeks, and I have noticed a few strange things:

  • They Seem To Have Borrowed Death From Pac-Man
    To a certain extent, anyway. The ghosts in Pac-Man don’t die. Their eyes just go back to their cage and they start again. Some might argue that this is inaccurate because the ghosts do not go to find their corpses and ressurect themselves there. I simply believe the ghosts do not care about resurrection sickness and they have no inventory.
  • Not All Creatures Are Created Equal. (Or Symmetrical.)
    One of the most annoying things about WoW to me is that when I need to go find 18 Thunder Lizard Tails for some random dude, I will very likely need to kill about 40 Thunder Lizards to get them. I can clearly see that you all have tails, Thunder Lizards! A friend suggested that perhaps during battle, I damaged the tails, and that makes them unusable. I would submit that I have 200 ranks in Skinning, and that my devotion to my craft and comittment to making quality leather products would prevent me from doing any such thing. Plus I have a policy of only attacking Thunder Lizards in the face. So unless they are uncontrollably pooping lightning and damaging their tails, I AM OFFICIALLY CALLING SHENANINGANS.
  • The People Of Azeroth Are Unbelievably Lazy
    In every town, there are all these level 40-50 people standing around, and they’ve all got problems. Oh, the Sand Kobolds are causing a ruckus and their numbers need thinned! So they need help, and my l33t level 10 skills are just right for the job. So I volunteer. And then I walk down the street a little bit (almost close enough to still be able to see the guy who gave me the quest), kill the offenders, and then go turn in my quest. What, is somebody gonna steal the stump you’ve been standing on all year? Or do you only have 1 durability left on that level 45 garden hoe you’re wielding and you sure as hell aren’t gonna pay Groshnak the weaponsmith the 2sp it would take to repair it after what he pulled at poker night???

    Maybe they’re not lazy. Maybe they’re all old people in disguise, and I am simply a lawn-clearing enforcement officer.

  • Vengeance Is A Dish Best Served With Specific Details
    The quest structure in WoW usually dictates you need to get X of this or kill Y of this. For an RPer like me, this makes some of the quests a little strange. If a local militia leader wants you to drive out a bunch of demons from the forest, he knows how many it will take to do it. If somebody’s family’s been murdered, they know EXACTLY how many dead Quilboars it will take to make them feel better.

    I wish I had that kind of information in my daily life! Then again, when I go to Taco Bell, I would probably have to order and pay four times before one would actually give me a taco (though my inventory would be full of bean burritos).

4 Responses leave one →
  1. Anonymous permalink
    November 6, 2008

    LOL…Love your comment about Taco Bell!

    I’m not a WoW player (by choice) but even I got a kick outta that one. 🙂

  2. Anonymous permalink
    November 6, 2008

    Awesome post. Keep it up!

  3. Todd Bradley permalink
    November 7, 2008

    My wife loves Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO). From what I’ve heard, it’s fairly similar to WoW. I’d never played any of those kind of games until she got into LOTRO, and so I played for about 6 months. As a long time RPGer, I found it unsatisfying for all the same reasons you mentioned, and just last week canceled my subscription.

    The quests the NPCs give you in these games are neither logical nor good storytelling. And I never did wholly get over the lack of persistence in the world. I’d go do some great deed and kill off some mongo powerful orc commander. But then 5 minutes later he’s back alive and there’s another group of people going to kill him off.

  4. SirGeekelot permalink
    November 10, 2008

    I feel I need to come to the defense of WoW here for a second. I have been playing MMO’s since Ultima Online and really like them. However, as a standard RPG player I will agree that the quests are not good story-telling. That is … until Burning Crusade.

    In the expansion for World of Warcraft they did a bunch better job of making the quests meaningful and logical. There are a still a few duds, but by in large, the quests make sense as to why you are doing them. My hope is that they have continued and improved upon this with the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

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