The Unfourtunate De-Hardening of Warcraft
I’m saddened to report that World of Warcraft has gotten easier.
They’ve always been in flux, the game mechanics. One skill gets tweaked to be more powerful, this talent gets nerfed so that rogues can ceaselessly own warriors, etc. et al. But World of Warcraft is easier today than it was at release, even a few months ago. They even made it easier to level from 1-50, so that people could stock up on higher level characters for the next expansion (right, that’s not what I’m referring to here).
The painful ease of which I speak: certain key mobs (i.e. monsters) are no longer elites. Elite mobs, for those untainted by Warcraft, are those that possessed far more deadly abilities than normal monsters. It was an ingenious game mechanic to add them and far better to have certain key mobs present the player with bigger challenges.
For my upcoming research (more details soon) I’ve, you know, found it necessary to add a few levels onto certain key characters in order to experiment with a new form of sampling. I’ve been incredibly disappointed with mobs that I always looked forward to as a refreshing challenge. Monsters with more deadly powers had to be taken seriously, with preparation and skill. Add to that there was always a, shall we say contingent chance that you’d get torn to pieces. It makes the otherwise mindless grind a bit more thrilling. Gets the blood pumping, yaknow?
This ultimately gets to the heart of where the addiction discussion can crap on games. If developers make commercial decisions that are the least bit influenced by wanting to create something that’s easy to keep healthy, they play with a delicate balance between fun game design that goes in tandem with our real world obligations - or attempts that fall flat. Without any thought to real-world balance, you get something different. Something I’d suggest Warcraft felt in the time of 40-man raiding and Grand Marshal/High Warlord grinds. There’s an incredibly alluring dynamic in the game world - but the toll exacted by preference to that world would, and has, added a new dynamic to the online-space-race that’s finally going to gas up for its pageant.
I know at least four people who just fly around Shattrath when they play. They have this world that they’ve invested in - largely in a time when the raiding spirit was only somewhat plagued by the notion of balance. Now the world firsts are long gone, the essence of raiding that brought in so many people is tired and people are looking for a unique new kind of dynamic within games but interlaced with reality. Raiding has always been on the menu of the hardcore gamer, WoW made its contribution, but whether by the attrition of exhausting addiction or the imbalancing of the WoW raid dynamic, there’s an essential spirit that’s gone missing.
And yet the bonds that hold Warcraft together are only beginning to bend. This online space race, the commercial war of the worlds, will be a lot of things. Interesting is one that I’m betting on, though for more betting see my last post.
Neils Clark :: Jun.07.2008 :: Games, Media Experience ::
