World of Warcraft: LFS (Looking For Story)

Ok, so I’ll just come out and say it: I play World of Warcraft.

I’ve been playing for about 3 years now – I picked up the habit just before the Wrath of the Lich King expansion came out.  At the time, my brother and sister had both been playing for about a year or so, and I finally broke down and accepted one of their invites for a free trial. They’ve since kicked the addiction; I keep going back for more. 

When I was new to the game, I would constantly see people in the chat channels complaining about how the game was being “ruined” by the developers.  The old-schoolers and elitists would talk down to all of us "newbs" about how none of us really were forced to learn how to play the game or how to properly use our characters.

They would complain that the game was too easy – that leveling was too fast and loot came too quickly.

They would bitch that the “big bads” in the game were “nerfed” (nerd-ese for “made soft"), or how they remembered when they had to walk everywhere until level 40 (20 levels from the original level cap) before being able to get a mount and that it was “unfair” how the mount requirement was lowered to 30. 

They used all these things and more to vilify the game’s publisher for breaking the game – that the game was somehow ruined for all the old school players because, in their eyes, the game was being changed to cater to “less skilled and less dedicated” newer players.

At the time, I used to roll my eyes and thought of these complainers as the geek equivalent of the old man who bores the shit out of you with stories about how a penny would buy him 8 tons of candy back in his day.

Now… 3 years later… I find myself having similar complaints.

I don’t care that new characters can get mounts at level 20 (down 10 levels since I started playing).  Walking is slow, the world is big, so I support this change.

I think it’s great that they can press a button and basically “wait in line” for a questing group to tackle a dungeon.  When I started playing, I had to hang out in town and beg in the chat channel for an hour, usually with no success. 

I even like that every so often, they make the high level content easier so that a higher number of players (and not just the dedicated few) get to see and conquer the end game baddies.

What does bother me is the speed of the leveling.  While I like the easier flow of questing from zone to zone, I completely agree with the complainers that gaining levels has been dumbed down too much. 

For me, story is important, particularly in a game that has any sort of grind.  All RPGs, MMORPGs especially, are quite repetitive - you can only kill x amount of y so many times without it feeling like groundhog day.  As such, the story in these types of games is what keeps me engaged and keeps me playing.  The lore for the world that exists in this game is intricate, vast, and chock full of little pop culture easter eggs - if you go out of your way to see every bit of it.  But the game’s design has changed so that it almost seems as if it’s pushing you forward to the detriment of the story

Levels fly by so quickly at this point that your character often “out levels” an area before you’ve seen the whole story for that zone.  The experience and rewards offered for seeing that story line through to the end are far outweighed by the rewards offered for moving onto the next “level appropriate” zone.  Leveling happens even faster if you happen to run a few dungeons in between quests. Throw in heirloom gear (special gear that high level characters can “pass down” to lower level characters) and guild perks and the levels pass by at lightning speed.

For a game that is built on getting the next upgrade, for hitting that next level, the message is clear: fuck the story.  Who cares if the people of Westfall are counting on you to solve the mystery of the murders happening throughout the country side – you’ll get a better sword than you’ll ever get in Westfall if you move on to Redridge Mountains and help the people there with their gnoll problem.  You can improve your character’s growth, abilities, and gear, or “waste time” by seeing the quest through to the end.

When the game was first released, you needed to explore just about every inch of the 2 continents that were available to hit level 60.  When I started playing, you could get away with doing half of that.   These days, you may only see a third of the “original” world, and, more than likely, only see half of the story in every land you visit. 

The game has been going strong for 7 years, and I understand that changes need to be made to a game like this to keep it somewhat fresh, and to keep the all-important subscription dollars rolling in.  I’m just disappointed that it comes at the expense of the story.