VGGEN.com

> PC Gaming

• Home
• Games Index
• News
• Reviews
• Previews
• Release List
• Features

> Xbox 360

> Xbox

> Nintendo Wii

> GameCube

> Nintendo DS

> Game Boy

> PlayStation 3

> PlayStation 2

> PSP

The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of VGGEN.com as a whole or any of its affiliates. This is simply one writer's opinion, and should be accepted as such. Weekly World of Warcraft is usually updated each Tuesday.

Unlimited World Limits

People love to argue over the biggest problem present in World of Warcraft. Some argue the class balance is off, while others complain about the almost broken World PvP system. None of these, however, are my biggest problem with World of Warcraft and MMORPGs in general. The problem is the static nature of the game environment.

Static nature? Allow me to elaborate. Lets go with the basic examples first. Take the PvP Plaype-I mean Battlegrounds. Outside of the PvP ranking rewards, which are extremely hard to get, there really is no incentive to winning Battlegrounds. No matter how many times you win or lose in Arathi Basin, Alterac Valley, or Warsong Gulch, the battlefields never change. The Horde and Alliance territory is still locked in the same positions they were since launch, and nothing is ever gained or lost through the battlegrounds. Sure, you can get PvP ranks and honor with the respective Battleground factions, but it does nothing to change the world. The dynamics of the battlegrounds never change either. No matter how many times a particular side wins, they still start off on equal footing every round.

Battlegrounds, however, are designed to be more of a PvP tool to make PvP combat interesting. What happens if we apply the same logic to World PvP? There is absolutely no incentive to form World PvP raiding parties, other than to simply harass people sitting in a capital city. If a group does manage to kill a racial leader, nothing really happens. The group breaks up and the racial leader eventually respawns with no penalty to the faction that let one of its leaders die. While there is a lore issue involved with permanently killing leaders and major characters, there would be no problems with the leader being "seriously injured" after being killed by a raid party and being out of commission until the server downtime. How would this change the world environment? Give the faction that allowed its leader to die some sort of penalty in the game. Not only would it provide a living feeling to the game, it would also provide an incentive to have World PvP.

Lets take another in-game situation. The gnomes lost their capital city prior to the start of World of Warcraft. Indeed, the city of Gnomeregan is an instanced dungeon, where Alliance players work to kill the Troggs and insane gnomes living there. Yet, no matter how many people clear the instance, Gnomeregan is still controlled by hostile forces and the Gnomes are still squatting in a room inside of Ironforge. After some point, wouldn't the Gnomes get up and construct a new capital city? The same could be said for the Trolls squatting in Ogrimmar. There should have been a world event long ago to construct capital cities for two of the playable races in the game.

Perhaps the strangest thing is that factions never have any rough spots with each other, even though there should be obvious tensions within the Horde, Alliance, and every other neutral faction. Yet, outside of siding with the Bloodsail Buccaneers against the Goblins (which people only do to get a stupid hat, it isn't worth it regardless), there is no choice in interacting with the world. Everyone is a loyal soldier to their side, and every faction on each side seems to get along perfectly with very little, if any problems with each other. Also, the Alliance and Horde are supposedly at some sort of uneasy peace, yet World of Warcraft treats them as if they are at complete war. If two factions were at an uneasy peace, shouldn't there be some sense that the Alliance and Horde are walking a thin line between war and peace? The interaction between both factions is non-existent, and it just becomes an entire aspect of the game that's blatantly ignored.

World Events should happen with every major patch, yet they've only have a small handful since World of Warcraft was released in 2004. The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj event with patch 1.9 was a good idea. In order to access the new content, servers had to work together and perform a massive server-wide collection before the gates to the new dungeon would be opened. However, this is the only live event that's been in World of Warcraft since its release, and came more than a full year after the initial release. While the Burning Crusade expansion promises to add more events and change the landscape, gamers pay a monthly fee to ultimately play around in a largely non-interactive static world that never changes. World events take planning, and live events are prone to numerous problems (such as crashing servers). However, it isn't too much to ask for a few real-world changes with each major patch. In fact, it should be a priority for the major patches since it keeps the subscription base entertained. With the expansion all but officially pushed until Fall 2006 or later, keeping the subscribers entertained and happy should be the first priority.

April Foolishness

To anyone that actually fell for the Blizzard April Fool's joke this year, you're an idiot. Wisps as a race doesn't work on any level, and the whole "blow yourself up and get permadeath" should have given it away. That is, if the post date of "Friday, March 31st" didn't already. Blizzard is notorious for launching April Fools jokes, including the Pandaren Express delivery service, Two-headed Ogres played by two separate players, and (my personal bane), Pandarens as a playable Warcraft III race. Trust me, I want to know what the Burning Crusade Alliance race will be too, but I'm not going to believe it until I see something believable AND real. Think before you spam up message boards and the /1 general chat.

Posted: 04/03/2006

Copyright © 2010, VGGEN.com - All Rights Reserved. All content contained herein is property of VGGEN. VGGEN is not affiliated with any video game developers or publishers. Logos, trademarks, names, and images are property of their respective companies.