The time has come. How do I tackle World of Warcraft, the biggest MMORPG on the planet, a genre I don't really care for and can't see myself playing?
I guess we dive right in? It has a free-to-play offering up to level twenty. Shall I actually give it the time to get to level twenty, instead of dipping my toes in and running away to more familiar waters at the slightest hint of unease? I suppose it is World of Warcraft. Like, the World of Warcraft. I can't just sweep that aside, can I?
Frustrations
With the 1001 list, I prefer to play games as close to possible to their original release states, and with an evolving MMORPG, that just isn't possible. Except for the fact that World of Warcraft, does, now, have a server (or two? How does it work?) dedicated to that classic, 2004-era experience. It's called World of Warcraft Classic, and it's not free-to-play, sadly, and I don't want to stump up the cash in these trying times to play a game I won't like.
But I can at least play the game in its current state, for no investment at all, other than my time and hard-drive space, and that's what I did. Enter our humble Paladin on his quest to reach level twenty. I don't even know how long that will take. Will I manage it? Will I get anywhere close?
A concise scene-setting intro says something about the world that I didn't take on board. I don't know where I am or what I'm doing, but I here I stand, next to Penileboy and Fuhrerina. You couldn't make it up if you tried. This is World of Warcraft. A bunch of players clamouring for the attention of an NPC quest giver. And what is our first quest in this brand new world?
A bunch of worg roam the grasslands over yonder, and we've got to prove ourselves capable of combat. It's a case of running over to a target with WASD, clicking on it, and then pressing '1' to perform a fancy swing, which I assume does a little more damage than the default attack animation, which loops until one of the combatants falls over. It's the kind of combat where all the number crunching happens under the hood, and nothing quite makes sense.
And just like that, we're level 2! Our next quest is to do the same thing but against some Orcs.
And just like that, we're level 3! We're going to see level twenty in no time at all. That is if I can see myself doing all these repetitive quests. Kill 5 of these. Kill 8 of those. Come back to me with proof of your heroic deeds.
At some point, I hit level 4. I've gotten some equipment for killing things and had unlocked some abilities to make killing things easier, but this was clearly a tutorial area to start new players off. The quests are simple, one-and-done affairs. They'll get more interesting, surely. The first different one I got was to heal some soldiers. Walk up to them and press your right mouse button.
That's level 5. If you squint, you'll see the quest info and whatnot on the left. On an ultrawide monitor, that's a great place to put it so that it doesn't get in the players' way. It's also a great place to put it so that I can completely ignore the story or even the reason why I'm killing all these things. It's like none of this matters. These aren't quests, these are chores.
And then I'm given a fire extinguisher and told to put out some fires. That's quite a difference from fighting things. It also teaches me about quest-specific items. I don't recall having taken much interest in the contents of my backpack up until this point, so it's damn handy I don't have to root through them looking for the extinguisher - it's right there on my HUD, waiting to be used.
Oh, and there are things to kill. Hello, level 6.
Heading out into the broader world of wherever we are, we stumble across a little town with an Inn to call home - and more NPCs dishing out quests in silence, while twenty players faff about, doing their own thing. Some are on quests of their own. Others are chatting. Some are even having a duel. I had no interest in any of them, and that is my problem with the genre.
We're told to scope out a mine for some reason, and upon getting there, have to deal with a bunch of miners desperately defending their candles. Sorry, folks. I've got a checklist to complete. There's level 7.
At this point, I was very aware of how little I was engaging with these NPCs. All that was in my head was 'go here, do that, don't ask questions, ignore distractions'. Unless another NPC had a quest to give me somewhere along the route, in which case, for efficiencies sake, you take on a new quest, obviously.
Here's one that I took on that I actually bothered to read. A young woman living on one farm has fallen in love with a young man who lives on another. Do we think their respective families get along? Will the head of either the family allow this love to flourish? Of course not. We're the middle man. A random stranger who will deliver messages not because it's the right thing to do, or because we're invested in these peoples' plight, no. We do it for the XP. Same reason we kill Princess, no questions asked.
Two more levels. I forget what or who these quests are for. I just follow the markers. The next set takes me towards a lake full of evil critters.
These fishy fellas killed me, yes, but I had some more skills from all these levels. I could heal myself and others and had a few fancy attacks that used the power of the almighty to smite my foes. I eventually managed to provoke only one of the buggers at a time so that I could survive in harvesting something from them. I don't even remember what I was hoovering up into my inventory slots. So long as the numbers kept increasing in my favour, I was doing the right thing.
I'm now level 10. Halfway through my goal. The grind is real.
Ahhhhhh. I was providing ingredients for an invisibility potion for our young lover to use to see her young lover from the other field. Wow. What lovely storytelling. You people mean nothing to me, give me XP.
Another new area to explore. I'm introduced to the idea of elite enemies that require teamwork to tackle, so I avoid that particular quest as best I can. Finding a letter on a dead thief points me to a new quest marker, and it (along with a lot of killing along the way) rewards me with a level increase. Level 11.
We've stumbled across a crime scene, with some inspector looking incredibly out of place in a fantasy setting such as this one. World of Warcraft isn't strictly fantasy, incorporating all kinds of different elements in various ways, but at its heart, it is all swords and magic and evil monsters. I wasn't expecting murder investigations.
The local homeless all have their own theories, and the local monsters offer their own clues, once I kill enough of them. It's time to head back to this inspector and provide the evidence he's been looking for. No questions asked. Follow the quest markers. Give me another level. Level 12.
A shadier individual gives me another investigation quest, and a box to hide in. A big, two-headed something or other is having a secret meeting with a lady dressed head to toe in black. What's their deal, I wonder, briefly, knowing that I don't really care. But good on World of Warcraft for having me hide in a box to eavesdrop on a conversation, rather than pick up a letter that's been left out for all to read, or whatever.
It's a shame those conversations weren't voiced. Still, it gets me up to level 13. I don't know who you are, shady man, but thanks for your reward. Another eavesdrop quest? Sure.
Ooh, that's a turn of events. I turn my back and walk to the other end of a barn and suddenly the quest giver is lying dead, and the investigator is investigating. Well, you keep up with that, my good man. I'm going to run across to the next quest marker.
Kill 10 mechanical scarecrows. Level 14. Did I pick up some of their parts? Yeah, of course I looted all the corpses. What do you want me to do with them? Put them in another mechanical thingymajig and drive it through another 25 scarecrows? Oh, go on then...
Hello stranger! Thanks for killing all those scarecrows. Could you do me a favour and gather all the ingredients for some soup? Great, thanks. Level 15. Oh, can you deliver this soup to someone in town? Cheers.
Can you tell I have no attachment to the events taking place in World of Warcraft? Is that on me? Yeah, partly, sure. If I made sure to read all the quest info and actually take the characters and their situations on board, I'd have some idea of what's going on in this place. But at the same time, these are just fetch quests. I'm not following a single campaign here. I'm not in a single-player RPG where I can meander my way through quests in an order that appeals to me. I'm in an MMORPG, where I can see other players running to and fro, doing the quests that I'll be doing in just a moment, or found myself doing just moments ago.
It's all so bizarre and doesn't sit right. Yet I'm still playing it. But am I only doing so because I told myself that I'm getting to level twenty, or have I been caught by some psychological trick and am destined to grind forever because I like to see numbers increasing?
I run along to the next quest marker before answering that.
I die a few more times before finally delivering enough soup to hit level 16. This crumbling old fort, if you could even call it that, is under constant attack. That's a quest or two in itself. I'll check it off at some point, I'm sure. What's next?
I'm pointed to a tower that I need to stealth my way into with the aid of an invisibility potion to eavesdrop on another conversation. I completely gloss over that fact on account of it being written in text that I didn't read, but I eventually work it out, at which point I just have to sit back and laugh at the absurdity of the MMORPG.
A bunch of players, all on their own invisible quests, all standing around invisibly watching a secret meeting - another secret meeting - between these two characters. This is some kind of storyline that I should be paying attention to, but for many a reason, I just can't.
This is nonsense. When the text stops and the characters conclude their business, a bunch of invisible players have a race back down the tower, jumping and falling down the stairs before emerging back into the sunlight to do whatever is next on their lists. Me? While I'm here, I can check off some other quests. Kill, kill, kill.
And that's level 17. We're close. Not long left to explore for free. Have we been sold on World of Warcraft yet?
A new little town and a new quest giver sees us get up to new things. This time, we need to pick up some pamphlets and newspapers for someone outside of town. They're defended by thugs, whose clothing leads to another quest. New quests depending on where you explore and who you kill. At least we'll be kept busy.
Thankful for a stranger shoving paperwork into his hands, this guy tells us to quickly head back into town to listen to a protest, and report back with our findings. Can't he just walk thirty seconds down the road and do this himself?
More storyline, I'm sure, but as I don't know of the setting, I've no idea of the situation. I need some backstory here, and I'm not getting any. Still, quest complete, onto the next one.
I forget how I even got this questline, but it saw us following some homeless folks into a mine, and then being told to drink a potion to watch a vision about some prior events. That at least sounds like I might get to learn something important about what's going on. Maybe I should have been more heavily invested in all these characters.
More monsters, more XP. Level 18 is upon us, and we've got more abilities, like shining the holy light on our opponents for massive damage or having a protective aura for a few seconds. They're all triggered with a press of a number key, and their all on cooldowns of varying lengths so that you can't spam them.
I've not mentioned it, but spells can get interrupted during casting, including by yourself if you so much as think of moving while casting them. It means you've got to think about when to heal or which target to freeze in place - if you value your life, at least. I've died at least five times already, and the penalties have been minimal. Nope, here I am just rocking up and hitting anything with a health bar.
After what felt like ten minutes of searching the Deepmines for the entrance to the Deepmines, I actually find the entrance to the Deepmines and can finally view some backstory.
That didn't tell me anything.
After grabbing some pizza - the concept of time had worryingly escaped me as I played through this game - I found myself with a quest to kill this big lumbering two-headed bloke, on orders of the investigator, no less. This wasn't a crime scene, but it was about to become one. The net was closing in, and all that, and I was going to be the one to do it.
... or not. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get past a single enemy. I couldn't even coax these NPC guards to help by leading a big scary ogre or whatever into their line of sight. I was on my own, in a dungeon that required me to work with other players, and there were no other players.
Final Word
That was it. That was all I could do with World of Warcraft. There was no XP for me down there. The only way I could get to level twenty would be to grab some mates and tackle this boss together, or return to the surface and finish off some other quests.
"What's the point?" I found myself saying, and there was no answer. Or there was no point. I'm not invested in this game. I don't care about what I'm doing. I'm actually concerned that I've been staring at my computer for so long playing it. It was only a few hours in the end, but they were hours that I didn't know went past.
Games, especially open-world games, can lead players down so many exciting, attention-grabbing paths that time can breeze by without them knowing. If you set yourself a goal, and its either a long goal or one that can be lengthened with distractions, that time can whizz by. Sometimes we like that happening. We call it getting lost in a world. We love to lose ourselves.
Not me, or more accurately, not me in World of Warcraft. There was a time, between, oh, level 15 and level 17, where the setting sun was shining right into my eyes. I was leaning further and further into the screen to get away from the sun because I was too engrossed by playing the game to stop and close the blinds that were almost literally within arms reach. At level 18, I was nearly pulled away from the keyboard by P2 giving me pizza. You know, fuel for me to live.
That's alarming. It's on me for sticking with it and not taking breaks, but it's by design too. If you keep players in their seats, you keep them spending their money to play. If you keep rewarding them with levels, abilities, equipment, mounts, guilds, quests, sidequests, storylines, if you keep them playing for weeks, months, years, eagerly buying expansion after expansion... well, you've got yourself a phenomenon.
It's hard to deny the impact World of Warcraft has had on not only the MMORPG genre but the gaming world. It's clearly a must-play game. You've got to see what the biggest game on the planet has to offer. But for the love of all you hold dear, set yourself some limits.
I won't be playing WoW again. I've already uninstalled it to make sure that I don't. Not because it is a terrible game, but because I don't want to buy into it. It's not for me. I don't want to lose my time to it. I don't want to group up with friends to play it. I've got other, more exciting outlets for that. Not in these particularly troubling times (hello, Internet historians, talking about early 2020 here), but in general. In a perfect world.
Your perfect world might be playing World of Warcraft, and who am I to deny you that? Enjoy it, if it's your thing. Well, if it's your thing, you probably already have been, perhaps for 15 years. Good for you.
Definitely check it out. If World of Warcraft Classic ever gets a free-to-play version, I may hop in again. I doubt it, though. My circumstances just don't suit it.
Fun Facts
It would be ridiculous of me to not mention the Corrupted Blood incident, especially with what's going on in the real world today. Stay home, play WoW, save lives.
World of Warcraft, developed by Blizzard Entertainment, first released in 2004.
Version played: World of Warcraft Starter Edition, PC, 2004/2020