World of Warcraft
MMORPG's. I'm not sure about the whole concept and the appeal of them in comparison to tabletop roleplaying, which I spent many a day playing as a teenager. I started off at the tender age of 8 or 9 reading those 'choose your own adventure' type books especially the 'Fighting Fantasy' types written by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone who went on to form Games Workshop. I progressed on to 'Dungeons and Dragons' when introduced to it by my English teacher at about 10 or 11 and went to after school clubs to play. By the time I hit my teens I was totally addicted but had ventured into many other genres horror,superheroes, sci fi etc etc. I did have a group of likeminded friends and was never short of players.
We all progressed into real life fantasy roleplaying games dressing up as warriors and wizards most weekends for a few years before drifting off to university where after a few years my interest waned in all forms of fantasy roleplaying.
I have like many others played computer game versions of roleplaying over the years and enjoyed this as a solo pursuit. What I cannot grasp now is the explosion of MMORPG's. My experience of playing them is limited but the overwhelming sense of power gaming, rulegaming and limited social interaction despite thousands being online seems to put me off. I seem to find all targets take forever to complete and very frustrating to try. The roleplay aspect is limited to particular servers and dire when experienced. People are all to ready to battle and slaughter lower level characters for fun. The games just aren't tailored to the real life and in game skills of the individual or group such as table top gaming can achieve. Puzzles exist for 5 seconds until someone tells you the cheat/hint or answer. No items appear unique, just like the whole experience. And the final killer is the monthly fee. If I buy a game I don't want to constantly pay for the privilege of using it.
Anyway many friends seem to have been hooked who I used to game with so I thought it would be fun to get their present game of choice 'World of Warcraft' characters posted here (when they send them) as a bit of fun and spark some debate on this topic........
We all progressed into real life fantasy roleplaying games dressing up as warriors and wizards most weekends for a few years before drifting off to university where after a few years my interest waned in all forms of fantasy roleplaying.
I have like many others played computer game versions of roleplaying over the years and enjoyed this as a solo pursuit. What I cannot grasp now is the explosion of MMORPG's. My experience of playing them is limited but the overwhelming sense of power gaming, rulegaming and limited social interaction despite thousands being online seems to put me off. I seem to find all targets take forever to complete and very frustrating to try. The roleplay aspect is limited to particular servers and dire when experienced. People are all to ready to battle and slaughter lower level characters for fun. The games just aren't tailored to the real life and in game skills of the individual or group such as table top gaming can achieve. Puzzles exist for 5 seconds until someone tells you the cheat/hint or answer. No items appear unique, just like the whole experience. And the final killer is the monthly fee. If I buy a game I don't want to constantly pay for the privilege of using it.
Anyway many friends seem to have been hooked who I used to game with so I thought it would be fun to get their present game of choice 'World of Warcraft' characters posted here (when they send them) as a bit of fun and spark some debate on this topic........
