World of Warcraft

A controversial pick, some might say. Who cares? I have no problem admitting I played arguably the geekiest game out there. This is going to be a tough one for me to stay polite, but I'll just let loose with my thoughts.

World of Warcraft, or WoW, is a joke. While the gameplay is solid and refined, it's essentially the same thing in repetition for hours and hours on end. You have ten species/races and two factions you can choose from. For the factions you get the Horde and the Alliance, neither of which is truly good or evil. The races are divided evenly between those two- on the Horde side you have Orcs, Trolls, Tauren (Cow-people), the Undead, and Blood Elves (think magic junkies); on the Alliance you have your staple Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes, Night Elves, and the Draenei (religious aliens). The thing about it is, that there's truly no difference between the races by the maximum level of 80, aside from maybe a tiny bit of damage done or health; everything else is simply a class issue.

The reason I mention all of that is because the factions are only there to create a false sense of camaraderie with whichever one you choose. In all honesty, it's foolish since with the "good" comes a form of childish racism towards people who play the other side. Who am I to judge Blizzard's decisions, but I'm just throwing in my two cents.

Down to business. The main problems with WoW in my opinion stem from its popularity. With x-million members worldwide playing, Blizzard has a steady stream of income flowing in and inasmuch they know they don't exactly have to pump out new things quickly. With each expansion has come a new continent and either a new race or class, but the core of the game hasn't truly changed much since the game first came out. Classes begin to feel stagnant almost immediately, and Blizzard handles this by introducing a number of monsters that give higher experience per kill...only the experience bar is considerably longer with each level. It's like the description of a heroin addict's fix. You know, the one about chasing a dragon and never being able to catch it? Only you CAN reach maximum level...it just doesn't feel that much different, and you're probably still using those starting-out spells more than the ones you purchase every few levels.
The more sinister problem is that WoW, being so profitable, is a big, shiny target for those who capitalize on exploiting it. Keyloggers circulating the internet are now being designed to steal your password, and with it your "hard-earned" gold and gear. Sure, that sort of thing has been around practically as long as the internet...but not as intensely. I'm pretty careful when browsing the internet, yet I've had my account hacked twice! At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if the number of WoW-password keyloggers triples in the next year.

Overall, the game's fun...it's just not worth the money or time it takes to get to the fun stuff in the game. After a while (too long), I've finally quit it, and I feel much better now that I have.