WoW addictions and disappointments
As noted in Penny Arcade, WoW is a game that is incredibly fun to play. Unfortunately, right now it is so popular that the highest population servers are being saddled with queues, as noted multiple times elsewhere. This leads to an incredible amount of bitching, and many people saying “if this keeps up, I’m not renewing.” Hell, Gabe and Tycho even revoked WoW’s GOTY status.
I’d feel bad for these people, but I just don’t. Seriously, the reason people are pissed is that the game is so damn addictive that you have to log in to get your fix. I know, because I am one of those people. I play on Silver Hand, the high population role-playing server that shares a database with several of the highest population PVP servers. On Monday, guildies were reporting waits as long as four hours and 3600 people. The overwhelming reponse in guild chat was doubt about renewing and bitterness about queues. A friend was playing and had just joined the guild, and he was like “is this what it’s like all the time?” I had to assure him that “no, it isn’t.”
The point of this rambling is that somehow, these people are identifying so closely with a single character on a single server, they are missing everything else about the game. Number one, they are willing to wait four hours to get into the damn thing. If it’s that good, why shouldn’t you renew, regardless of the wait? I mean, you’re still getting to play, aren’t you? Or, how about looking at another server? I happen to be progressing quite nicely on another server (PVP) that is far less populated. I see a queue, I’m hitting that “Change Realm” button and I am playing while you’re stewing in your own juices.
And please, stop blaming the Blizzard devs and CSRs. The fundamental reason for these issues is a management decision to get only a couple of database licenses to save money, ‘cos those are expensive mfers. So when the devs try and implement fixes to allow the databases they have to work better, and problems arise, all players can do is bitch about the devs. The CSRs can’t come out and say that it’s f’n managements fault, so they are stuck making the stupid pronouncements that they do about fixes breaking things. And then people bitch at the CSRs.
So, what we have is a bunch of people that created the best damn MMORPG in the world getting slammed by the people who can’t get enough of it. Ungrateful assholes, that’s what we are. Let’s point some vitriol at the suits at VU and even at Blizzard who decided to cut on the database seats, instead of the guys working their asses off on weekends to let us sit inside and get fat.
In beta, I had disconnect problems. I could log on, but within a couple of seconds to 5 minutes, I’d drop back to log in screen. I posted on the forum’s in other people’s threads. Always there would be a blue response saying “post your log and follow up info…blah blah blah.” Finally, I posted, “Who all else is having this problem?” thinking maybe if we got all the posts in one thread, they’d realized it wasn’t a newb that didn’t have the right drivers. I got a response all right. “Don’t come here and try to gather a linch mob. Post your problem so we can try to resolve it.” I linked back to all the other threads that had never gotten an answer and they never responded. I figure there’s a one blue reply per post limit.
By this time I was L50+ and didn’t see the need to complain further. I figured if they wanted beta testers to test the game, they’d listen and fix the problem. I’d pretty much seen everything, had lived through major rogue nerfs (not that they didn’t need it, but it’s always hard to lose skills you’ve enjoyed using), and figured it was probably time to retire anyway.
My point? I’m not sure. I lost it somewhere along the way, but I do know going in I thought, “No use complaining – especially to guild members that can’t do anything about it.”