Geekery, Inc.“Insert nerdy quote here”

A Level 80 Paladin - with friends.

I’ve quit World of Warcraft at least four times.  Each time I quit, I think I won’t be coming back.  I think about how raiding takes so much time.  I do the mental calculations in my head about how long it would take to get another character to max level and, if I did, what would be new about it?

I go off and play other MMOs, be it Final Fantasy XI, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer Online, City of Heroes…

And yet, every time I’m with another MMO, I can’t do anything without comparing it to WoW.  And every time I come back, eventually.  Why, though?  What’s Blizzard done with Warcraft that makes it compelling?  I mean, when you break the game down into its component parts, it’s pretty much the same thing as every other MMO out there. You have your FedEx quests; you have your ‘kill 30 kobolds’ and ‘bring me 25 crocodile scales’ quests; you’ve even got ‘go into this dungeon and kill Stabby McKillerstein, Scourge of the Whatsit.’

But somehow, every time I’m doing these same things in another MMO, I’d rather be doing them in Azeroth.

I’ve thought a lot lately about why that is.  It really boils down to the fact that Warcraft has been around for a long time; basically, it has momentum.  And really, ‘momentum’ here has a few meanings.

The game is stable.  There are very few technical issues with the engine.  Amazingly, the graphics don’t look dated despite being four years old.  To top all that off, the system requirements are very low.  They may not be the prettiest (Lord of the Rings Online is almost inarguably prettier), but they’re consistent.

Having a game that’s had this much time in production also means that Blizzard has had a lot of time to hone their skills.  Wrath of the Lich King is a showcase of this improvement.  In a lot of cases, not only are the quests better, but features from the other MMOs I’ve played that are ‘cool’ have been integrated.  Achievements (City of Heroes, Lord of the Rings Online) are a great example of this.  Some of the changes have been more subtle.  This expansion added a lot of areas where you’re able to do two or three quests at once - something I liked about Lord of the Rings Online.

Momentum also carries with it a large player base.  And I think this is really what keeps bringing me back.  You can’t have MMO without Multiplayer and I have quite a few good friends I’ve met through WoW (the co-author of this site included).  Every time I play another game, there’s just not enough social stimulation to keep me interested.  Somehow, killing those 30 kobolds or finding those alligator teeth is a hell of a lot more fun when you have four or five friends hanging out with you.

In their review for Lord of the Rings Online, Eurogamer said it was the game everyone would be playing if their friends played it. I’ve used that phrase a lot since I read it. It makes me think of when I played FFXI and WoW came out. “Good,” I thought, “now all the 14 year-olds will leave FFXI.”

But as time dragged on, more and more people were making the switch. And I kept hearing about how fun the game really was. I made the switch a year into the game being out and… well, I’ve only looked back once, very briefly. It was not a pleasant experience (FFXI’s graphics have NOT aged well at all).

So Illuminaire, my pally on Draenor sits at home, waiting for me to login and meet up with all the other people’s characters who are doing the same. And so it will (probably) continue ad infinitum (ad nauseum, maybe?).

-Dan