I consider myself to be an intelligent guy. People tell me I'm a smart guy (most of them are not coerced). As part of that, I like to think that I'm also mature enough to admit when I'm wrong. It is, in fact, extraordinarily rare for me to actually be wrong, which is all the more reason to draw attention to it when it happens. This time, I am wrong about a video game.
Blizzard's World of Warcraft (hereafter: WoW) boasts more than 13 million subscribers...that's 13,000,000! WoW is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). The genre makes a fair bit of sense if you don't think too hard about it.
ArenaNet's Guild Wars (hereafter: GW) has something more like 4 million subscribers. A mere shadow of the fanbase for WoW. GW has a compelling, story-driven narrative, better graphics, a more forgiving battle system, and is much less intimidating.
Both these games came out about the same time and I tried them both. Once the respective trial periods expired, GW was the one that I continued playing...for a bit more than three years now. My initial impressions of WoW boiled down to an utter disbelief that anyone could actually prefer WoW to GW. GW simply outclassed its cousin in all the ways that mattered to me, and since I'm always right...
I maintained that belief for better than three years and played the bejesus out of GW. It's gotten to the point where the bad guys don't even bother trying to kill my party and me any more, they simply commit the appropriate ritual suicide as I approach. I love GW, but life started to get in the way of my fun. Virtually all the competent players in the game are in my guild (there are precious few). The guild is growing up and has competing commitments. Unfortunately, most of what I have left to do requires some of my guildies. This has led to a general ennui toward the game that will take some time to dissipate.
One of my best friends has been a WoW-er for some time and likes to pester and pressure me into his gaming universe. At one point I promised him that when (and if) I start to grow weary of GW and have some money lying around, I will give WoW another try.
Those conditions were met about a week ago and I need to revise my initial assessment of WoW. It's a beautiful world that's fun to play in. There isn't the same degree of graphical precision I enjoyed in GW, but WoW's strongest asset is starting to pull me ever deeper into the experience: sheer size. The world of Warcraft is massive beyond reckoning.
I'm still not convinced that WoW deserves its amazing popularity or that competing games should quiver and die before the onslaught of WoW. Now I'm convinced, at the very least, that WoW is fun. I just have to learn how to go to bed before 4am while I'm playing.
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