6 Ways World of Warcraft is Worse Than Real Life
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Did you know... #6.
WoW is a Lot Like Work
In World of Warcraft, like real life, you need money. WoW uses in-game gold as currency and to do the fun stuff ("raiding" and killing huge monsters) you'll need a lot of gold. And getting it isn't a whole lot more fun than working at Burger King. You earn gold by "farming," which is the slang term for the monotonous quests players slog through each day, that generally involve killing X monsters, or collecting X items and getting gold in return. Over and over and over again. For hours.
Active players will need to do this tedious farming about two days a week, to fund the actual fun part of their game. So basically not only do you have to work a day job to pay for the game, but your character also has to have a day job to pay for his raiding. Even stranger, enterprising gamers can make gold in a sort of commodities market that has formed in the WoW world. There is an in-game auction house where items are bought and sold between players. So you can sit there among the elves and monsters and act like you're on the floor of the stock exchange. Buy low, sell high, get rich.
There are even complex software plugins people use to track price histories and trends. There is speculation, price fluctuations, and selling panics. If you're asking why this is superior to, say, getting a similar job in real life, we suspect the answer is that in WoW you get to dress like this the whole time:
#5.
WoW is Also a Lot Like Job Hunting
You know how during your first month in prison you want to find a gang to join, so somebody's got your back in case you get shanked in the yard? Well in World of Warcraft those gangs are called guilds.
Either fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, guilds have plenty of people lining up ready to sacrifice their social lives to the group. Aspiring members are so eager that they are willing to go through a ridiculously involved guild application process. So you... 1. Register on the guild forum and fill out an application like this one. 2. Guild officers then go over your application, check out your equipment and contact you if you meet their standards. 3. If you measure up, you'll be allowed to go on some raids (missions) with them as an "app", where you're allowed only limited participation. This could go on for weeks.
4. You will go on some more raids with them as a "trial", now with limited access to forums and guild chat. Again this could last for weeks or months. 5. Finally you will be made a full "member", assuming you've not been rejected at any of the previous steps. You might have noticed that most political offices don't have that kind of vetting process. There are even websites featuring guild application tips and applicants often spend insane amounts of time putting together biographies or even animated presentations touting their skills. And when applicants get turned down, it gets ugly.
At this point, guild shopping might sound suspiciously like job hunting to you, but it isn't. When you apply for a job, employers not only don't mind you applying for other jobs at the same time, they expect it. In WoW, you are expected to only apply with one guild at a time. So if the months-long trail period ends in failure, you start over. And you do it all for the privilege of wearing the guild's proud name over your head everywhere you go.
#4.
Prejudice is Alive and Well in the Game World
Like in any social environment, WoW has stereotypes. Of course the players can't see your actual race, but that's okay. You choose a race and class when you start the game, and you'll be stereotyped based on that instead. For instance, you can choose to play as a Hunter. People will promptly refer to you as a "huntard" and start speaking to you loudly and slowly. Are hunters dumber on average than any other class? It's impossible to prove that kind of thing with hard facts or statistics, but yes.
It turns out a lot of new players and/or kiddies choose hunters when they first start playing (it's an easy class for the novice) so the "Hunter=Dumbass" stereotype was born and deeply entrenched in the culture. Another class, Rogues, have a reputation for being assholes. Again, there's a reason for this. When playing against other humans, their most effective means of attack is to sneak up on people before they're ready, kill them very quickly, and use their abilities to run away before their victim's friends can get revenge.
Thus, players have figured out that many people select Rogues specifically because they enjoy this kind of hit-and-run behavior. Again we're not saying that all rogue players are bad people, but they are. |
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I love the add right under this article for Erepublik! 'The first massive online "social" strategy game', funny. Anycase all of this is facking SAD! damn, how many people would actually sacrifice their lives if they could get reincarnated as a WoW character. Think on that. scary.
ss someone who just started playing WoW, I have to sat that I found this article hilarious.
Seriously though, Wow is a little addicting, but nothing too bad. Really. It's no more addicting than TvTropes.
. . .
Oh God, were doomed.
WoW contains a lot of bullshit calculated to make it as addictive as possible. For example an "enchant" that boosts an aspect of your character by 4% might cost 50 gold. But an enchant that boosts that aspect by 5% will cost 750 gold. That extra 1% will have very little to no impact on whether you succeed or fail on some bullshit fight, but if you want to a "leet" player and not a "baddie" you are under huge pressure to buy it, which requires 3 hours+ of boring repetitive grinding to earn the gold. And you will require multiple such enchants, which have to renewed every
time you get new gear.
And then there's these crap achievements like "your character has run nude around its capital city 3 times!". Really even in the context of this game these are meaningless, but once you are in full addictive mode you will actually run around trying to collect them.
Yeah I've had about enough of WoW.
Colombus: I guess it depends on what you like in video games. If you're into Shooters, it's probably not very appealing, but if you're into RPGs and any kind of game that requires you to / gives you the option of collecting tons and tons of meaningless items / achievements / money / whatever, then I suppose WoW is for you. :P Personally my favourite aspects of it are farming and hoarding money. Luckily the two go hand in hand.
Oh, and mounts. I want to have a pet goat that I can put a saddle on and run around town on... :(
http://www.wow.com/2007/09/17/blizzard-disbands-extreme-erotic-roleplaying-guild/
Very relevant to #1
I don't mean this in a bad way, and I truly do not want anyone to think I'm criticizing WoW players, but, what's the point of spending so much time in those virtual realms. I love video games, but WoW? I mean, it just takes so long and it's generally so unexciting. Some people completely succumb to it, completely abandoning the "RL", and I just want to ask: Is it really worth it? I've always been wary of these virtual worlds, and I can't help thinking the they will be our undoing.
that honey, would be because your miles away from the actual good content part of the game
And i dont get the "Huntard" thing.I have a level 24 hunter and no one has called me that (yet).
Plus,they can use guns.
I get so much gold from dungeons just from looting o.0
Mortal, this is low stuff. I'm telling your guild. I can't deny it all, and don't wanna. I'm guessing as resident WoWer you were commissioned to write a hack-job. Tough, buddy.
LOL the part about the rogue is very true. I am a rogue on my server and I do EXACTLY what the article said. Not to be an a*****e, but I find it funny how far an individual will go to get their revenge against me ranging from getting help from their entire guild to creating an account just to talk to me (I play on a PvP server so making a character of the opposite faction is not allowed.) Very funny article indeed. Thumbs up :D
What I hate the most is item #3. Farming really eats up my play time. Farming wow gold is tiresome, really.
Wow, this article confirmed what I was thinking - playing wow is a lot like our real life. :P
This is basically what any online MMO game devolves into on some level. Everquest and runescape had the same sort of thing going on. But these days...two words. Second Life.
indeed a funny post. why not add, farming wow gold is a lot like earning a living every day (in the virtual world). GEEEESSH!
I have never posted anything on the internet ever until now, but I would like to point out that people can spend way too much time doing inane things on the entirety of the internet. warcraft is no different albeit a lot more annoying.
Thankyou for posting this! One of the funniest things I have seen all day.
I compared the 3 most popular wow leveling guide. the ultimatewowguide is powerful.
Calm down people, there's no need to get so defensive. It's a GAME and this is just a funny post. Get over it.
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I somehow managed to escape the clutches of WoW but ended up getting Rogueswiped by EverQuest II. I have to say though; at least the people I play with are capable of coherent conversation (complete with intelligent humor) and I don't have the same trivial job-like atmosphere as...wait. (damn you Gathering Obsession gimme my harvesting cloak or die in a fire) Okay, the "totally unwork-like" is a lie. But I can't shut down my computer on this game for fear that my Fairy will come to me in my sleep stab me in the spine and loot my valuables because I didn't kick enough ass with her that day"