Games have always allured customers for a one-time payment for entertainment. Whether they were tabletop, video, or computer games, there was the game purchase and that was the end of things. Successful games saw expansions and new versions. For example, the Street Fighter series saw something like fifteen variations. But, never the less, once the game was purchased, the manufacturer never saw another dime even if it had great replay value.
Massively multiplayer on line role-playing games (MMORPGs) have bridged this subscription gap. Ultima Online, EverQuest, and Asheron's Call all were able to generate monthly subscriptions from their use base. This encouraged these companies to constantly upgrade and expand their game world. Both Ultima Online and EverQuest released ten expansions apiece. Each brought new features to characters and new locations for people to explore, but also felt like users had to buy a new game every single time content was added.
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft (WoW) followed in the footsteps of its predecessors and grabbed half of the MMORPG market share. In the world of Azeroth, two factions, the Alliance and the Horde, are locked in eternal conflict. Players can select a side, a race (five are available to each side), and one of nine classes (different races are restricted to certain classes). A player's class is what primarily defines their role in the game. Character abilities are most strongly tied to the classes.
One of the biggest questions is why do people keep playing WoW, even after they have achieved the maximum level? The primary activities in WoW is player versus player (PvP) and player versus environment (PvE) content. Also, where other games have created dozens of expansions, WoW releases periodic content patches. This paper will explore some of these additions and changes throughout the history of the game with particular emphasis on how the expansion, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (TBC), has changed the game.
Player versus Player
There are five general types of PvP encounters:
Battle Grounds
Arenas
World Objectives
“High Traffic” Combat
“Random” Combat
Battle Grounds
Prior to TBC, the only real sanctioned PvP content was within battle grounds. Players chose to compete in one of three instances and would earn honor based on their performance (kills and whether they won). A fourth battle ground was added in TBC. Currently available are:
Warsong Gulch- Basic 10 versus 10 capture the flag
Arathi Basin- 15 versus 15 combat with five bases to control for as long as possible
Alterac Valley- 40 versus 40 race to kill your opponent's general
Eye of the Storm- 15 versus 15 , available in TBC and requires level 70 is largely a hybrid of Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin with a flag to capture and bases to hold
Battle Ground Rewards
The first PvP ranking system computed a rank for each player each week. This was a rating of 1 to 14 (with 14 being the highest rank). A players' rank would determine how much honor they earned by winning battle grounds that week. It was impossible to go up more than one rank in a week and a certain percentage of your honor would disappear each week. Higher ranks allowed players to purchase progressively better gear.
Achieving rank 8 to 9 took relatively little work, perhaps a month or two of two to three hours of PvP per day. However, reaching rank 14 (which gave access to some of the best weapons in the game) could take months of playing 12 hours per day. This encouraged many people to share their accounts to have their friends keep their standing rising, or even stable at the highest rankings.
After the 2.0 Patch (the precursor to TBC), instead of a ranking, players simply received honor points from the battle grounds at the end of each day. These points were like a currency that never decayed like the old points. Instead of requiring a rank, the equipment cost a certain number of honor points. In TBC, there are few level 70 Epic rewards for Battle Ground PvP. These rewards are confined to the new Arena system. Because this
Twinking
A concept that is also restricted to battle grounds is what is called twinking. The way groups work, players are broken in to brackets based on their level (10-19, 20-29, 30-39, etc). Some people will create characters whose entire purpose is to stop leveling at 19 or 29 and stay to PvP in that bracket. Usually, they spend a large amount of time and money to obtain the best equipment and enchantments for that level. It is very difficult to create an effective twink without a character already at the max level to fund the expensive equipment it takes to do well.
Arenas
New in TBC are arena battles. They are fought in either 2 on 2, 3 on 3, or 5 on 5. Each player stays on a particular team that you play with and get a rating. Based on your rating each week, you get a certain amount of arena points. Like honor points, these arena points accumulate over time and can be used to buy gear. Every three months, the standings are reset and peoples rankings (but not arena points) are set back to zero. The top few teams each season gain access to a special epic flying mount. The main difference between arena rewards and battle ground rewards is that they are of epic quality and are much better.
Outdoor PvP
Blizzard's first experiment with structured world PvP was largely a failure. There are simply a few objectives in the world like capture a base or turn in some item. But, instead of fighting over them, Horde and Alliance tend to just pass each other to maximize their turn-ins. In Outlands, many zones have some kind of zone objective. Unfortunately, most of them are rarely contested and don't provide a big enough benefit to spend much time holding.
Other Outdoor PvP
The majority of world PvP happens randomly between people. Sometimes, Alliance and Horde don't gain anything by letting the other one live, so they kill each other just because they enjoy doing it. Other times, two people are trying to get to the same resource, say an herb or a mining deposit, and they end up fighting over it. People also tend to fight around instances and other high-traffic areas. As of late, Karazhan is frequently littered with corpses all around the front gate, especially on Tuesday night.
Why do people PvP?
I do not have a ton of PvP experience. In fact, I've never done an arena match and never been in the Eye of the Storm battle ground. Personally, I PvPed either to get a handful of gear upgrades or to pass the time with my guildmates when nothing else was going on and there wasn't much else I could do with my time. This motivation for playing has strong achiever tenancies with some undertones of socializer.
Others, however, enjoy PvPing because killing players makes them feel better and pumps up their egos. Sometimes, it's less their egos they're worried about and more the egos of their opponents they want to crush. While these players like the rewards that can come with competition, they are just as likely to fight in an arena as on the path to Shattrath. These are killers with some achiever qualities.
Player versus Environment
The other primary content people explore is based in instances with no other factions. These are called raid dungeons and, usually, require 10 or more people. Bosses in these areas usually drop gear significantly better than what drops in 5-man content.
Pre-Burning Crusade
The first major raid dungeon released was a 40-man area named Molten Core (MC). There was a small storyline behind it about some water elementals wanting to rid the world of fire elementals. After killing enough things in Molten Core, they gave you an item that let you douse runes which would, ultimately, summon the ninth boss who, after being defeated, will summon the final boss.
Unfortunately, MC suffered from being Blizzard's first raid instance. As such, it was pretty linear in design and rather boring (its nicknames were things like Molten Bore and Molten Snore). The hardest part about the instance was trying to assemble 40 people willing to go there for 4-6 hours. MC never really felt like much more than a loot pinata that you walked in once a week and smashed for a while.
Blackwing Lair (BWL), another 40-man instance, was opened about nine months after the launch. While there wasn't much more story behind it, the encounters were much more dynamic and fun to learn. Where MC boss strategy involved not doing stupid things, BWL bosses required everyone to do the right thing. One of the best examples of this is the very first boss, Razorgore. Throughout phase 1 of the fight, orcs and small dragons constantly spawn in the four corners of the room. The orcs need to be killed ASAP and the dragons need to be kited around by some means (warriors or hunters are common). Meanwhile, one person needs to mind control Razorgore and destroy eggs around the room. When all of the eggs are destroyed, tanking and killing Razorgore isn't difficult. Instead of a boss where it's simply a race of the raid DPS against the healer's mana, it's having to deal with dozens of adds efficiently and executing a somewhat complex strategy.
Following BWL two months later was Zul'Gurub (ZG), the first 20-man raid instance. Instead of being designed for cutting-edge raid guilds, ZG was designed for guilds that had the gear to run MC, but couldn't field a full 40 people. The encounters resembled BWL in that execution was much more important than gear. Personally, there were many times where we wiped horribly one try, corrected a small detail in strategy, and proceeded to completely destroy it.
Three more raid dungeons saw the world of Azeroth before TBC was launched. Ahn'Qiraj was split into two areas, one 20-man side (of slightly higher difficulty than ZG) and one 40-man side (of slightly higher difficulty than BWL). Naxxramus was the final dungeon launched before the release of TBC.
Burning Crusade Content
The biggest change in TBC is the number of people required to run the instances. Instead of the standard cap of 40, the largest areas require only 25 people. The very first raid instance only holds up to 10 people. This is one change that I particularly like. Before, getting 40 schedules to somewhat match was always a task. Sometimes, we would only have 30 show and sometimes we would have 50 show and some people would have to sit on the sidelines. Forty people was far too unwieldy.
What I have really enjoyed about the 10 man cap in Karazhan is the feeling of cohesiveness I have with my group. We have 10-12 people that are always at every single raid and, since we play together consistently, we work well together and know what to expect every single time we're there. While I primarily raid for the gear and sense of accomplishment of defeating large enemies, the smaller caps create a much better social feeling.
Why do people Raid?
Like I said above, I, personally, raid to kill bigger and badder enemies. The gear is a nice addition, but it mostly serves to further the killing of even more challenging encounters. Learning new bosses can be one of the most fun things in the game. A single night of raiding may cost me 15-20 gold in repairs alone, plus another 50 gold for a flask, but each night gets a little cheaper as our group gets better. In respect to raiding, I am much more of a mix between an achiever and an explorer. I particularly enjoy both defeating encounters and figuring out how they work and the best way to win.
Why do people play World of Warcraft?
To put it bluntly, there is something for everyone to do in this game. A player can invest two to three hours a week and casually peruse the content or you can play five to six hours a day, bent on defeating anything and everything in the game. One topic I didn't cover due to space constraints was trade skills. Many people take great pride in having every enchantment in the game or being able to craft the best swords.
Like any MMORPG, WoW has facets that appeal to any member of the player base. PvP primarily appeals to achievers and killers. Raiding primarily appeals to achievers and explorers. Socialization is mixed in everywhere else in the game. A player can level from 1 to 70 without talking to a single other person. However, at level 70, players need to work together in groups to accomplish anything.
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