The First Report

Well, I spent a few hours on World of Warcraft last night, and while it was reasonably fun, I'm not sure I get why it is so popular. Maybe the MMORPG genre is just not for me. For the most part it was like playing a single player game, but with lots of chat going on in the background and the visual spectacle of lots of other player characters running around playing the same game-- going on the same quests and reporting back to the same NPC's. Perhaps I'm just too low level and haven't scoped out the possibilities inherent in interacting with so many other player characters, or maybe I just expect more from a game. Baldur's Gate for instance, while visually less than stunning delivered an in-depth and nuanced storyline, something I haven't seen yet from WoW. There are lots of little quests, but where are the big plot points to keep it interesting? And while I was playing on the designated Role Playing server where people are expected to stay in character, most of the chat revolved around Chuck Norris facts.

What little role-playing I did witness was on the chat channel by characters that I couldn't even see, who were perhaps half a continent away. I sincerely doubt that their graphical characters were doing anything that resembled what they were chatting about. So, in essence, these people were having a nice IRC role play, which makes all the graphical flourishes and massive worlds of WoW seem unnecessary. In any event, I cannot see devoting the kind of time some people do to this thing. Once again I have to say that old fashioned RPG's give you more bang for your buck as far as fun is concerned, and are also more intellectually challenging and more social. I don't think anything in this online world can rival a well run campaign in a traditional RPG. So, I might be experiencing a little bit of buyer's remorse. Still, I've got a free month, so I'll give it some more time to see how it shakes out. I've got some more thoughts on this topic, but no time right now to get them down. So for now, I'll leave it at that....