FCC Blames WoW
 

Pardon me while I try to stop laughing.

Re: FCC Blames WoW
 

Are we surprised? It's not as if most of our current public service folk of the world have any intellect whatsoever.

Re: FCC Blames WoW
 

I've seen enough people flunk out who spend their entire day playing muds so I'm not surprised given WoW's popularity that it's currently the #1 cause.

I'm not sure what is so funny about it?

Re: FCC Blames WoW
 

People are probably in denial about it. It could really be anything that cause problem though. Depression, playing too much games, watching too much TV, and the list goes on.

What must be kept in mind when looking at WoW is what makes it special. It is a subscription based game. You pay a monthly fee to play it. This means that it is within Blizzard's interest to maximize people's addiction to the game because else they would lose customers and that is not good for business.

Take a look at this website I found: . Is it fake? I doubt it.

At "Todays Top Games" over at you realize something bad is going on. You see there that at least for those who use xfire how WoW totally dominates the other games. The charts at also show how WoW keep sucking people in.

There are also TV ads to push people into WoW. For example and this is for one of the largest MMORPGs in terms of subscriptions. Does WoW not have enough players already?

I remember years ago I read some articles explaining how huge Everquest was, but from looking at the mmogcharts I now understand that Everquest was very small. From the chart you see it only had max 250K subscribers at one time, while WoW currently has some 10-11 million subscribers. That is 44 times as large as Everquest.

This is bad. Very bad. It is bad because Blizzard pretty clearly want to suck people into an addiction for its own profit, and it is bad for us as well because players in the MUD community probably leave for WoW.

Re: FCC Blames WoW
 

That's not entirely true. It's actually more in their interest to keep you mildly interested, with some community ties or other investment in the game, enough to play each month or at least renew the subscription, but not necessarily to play for 8 hours every day. Since they charge by the month rather than the hour, they make most money when a subscriber is not playing, as they then incur no overheads on bandwidth, cpu, customer service, etc.

Personally I don't think there is anything particular to WoW that is any more addictive than most other online roleplaying games. Blizzard want players to stay interested but I doubt they ever plan it in terms of 'addiction'. That's more the external view on it, and is . With something like WoW you get pretty much the same gameplay as MUDs have offered for years, except you pay a premium for a much larger community and a whole load of polish.

It's a business. More players means more revenue and more financial safety for the company. It keeps employees employed and it keeps existing customers happy. Why on earth would they not advertise?

Re: FCC Blames WoW
 

That is exactly my point. It advertise to bring even more people into the "addiction" or time waste for its own benefit. I am sure the players feel very happy while playing WoW. Are they happy outside the game though?

WoW is a total waste of time, and there are many other hobbies that are both fun and productive that people could spend time on instead.

Re: FCC Blames WoW
 

But you make that sound like it's a bad thing, to want to provide entertainment as a business. Why? And why do you think WoW is a waste of time, yet you presumably play MUDs which are an incredibly similar pastime? It just sounds like bitterness to me, "because players in the MUD community probably leave for WoW".

Re: FCC Blames WoW
 

Certainly MUDs can be a waste of time as well if you do not watch out and are careful. There is a difference between MUD and WoW culture though. In MUD you could become a builder and directly add content to the game. You take on a role doing something productive, and eventually you could help to code the game itself or start your own.

In games like WoW on the other hand you are simply a player. You spend time gaining levels, and doing quests. There is very little creative things going on. Does someone like ? If you get some idea on a feature you would like to see you would not even get feedback on it. As player there you are far far down the ladder and you would never be worthy to talk to the developers directly.

That is the difference. In WoW you remain a player and your creativity is limited. In MUD you can actually improve your real life skills and produce something to be proud of. What do you gain from WoW?

Re: FCC Blames WoW
 

Wow.. really WOW. Who gives a ****? I played wow pretty hardcore for almost a year and left and never looked back and haven't played in two years now. Not to mention I wasn't in college at the time and had so much money I could do that with no repercussion to my life.

It's all a pass time, blaming it for your reason of failing college courses is your own fault, not the game. It's like blaming crack cocaine, an inanimate object that is harvested in a field for your failures in life. You have control over your own destiny and self, if you're not strong enough to dedicate your time where it belongs then I laugh along with prof at how pathetic the whole situation is. Grow some yarbles and stop blaming blizzard, the blame lies with the people, as personal failures always will. Even global failures will be blamed on the people, we elected the dumbasses that are saying WoW is a main cause for people failing out of college. Did they ever stop and think that perhaps the students parents are so utterly stupid and ignorant that they raise them on addictions such as television, alcohol, cigarettes, shopping, spending money you don't have on **** you don't need (fight club) that maybe that's the reason?

Re: FCC Blames WoW
 

Sorry, this is really silly... your assumption is that all MUD'ders turn into coders / builders? um.. no. Wow allows all kind of oppotunities to develop life skills.. team building, leadership, strategy, all the many wierd wonderful and sometimes incredible websites, community building, and learning the value of economy, saving, trading. MUD /WoW are the equivalent "waste of time". However, they are both hobbies and have their places in our lives.

I personally found MUD's.. especially the immersive one that I played to be far far more addictive than WoW. You can develop a deep feeling / closeness with your character and characters you relate / interact with, and as its all in your head, it can dominate and influence feelings and emotions.

After 10 years of muds, I moved onto WoW (now for nearly 2 years) and have more spare time than ever before to do things like the gym, exams, coding. People getting sucked into WoW and developing an addiction.. if it wasnt WoW it would be something else.

However I can see why it can be addicive, .. 2I just need 50 more gold to get a better mount... one more hour".. but I have never had full day sessions / full weekends like I did with MUD's.

Re: FCC Blames WoW
 

It's all a matter of perspective. The number of poeple playing WoW by far outweighs the number of people ever playing muds, which is why it's more of an "epidemic" than mudding ever was. Getting on a mud is much, much harder than logging into WoW and requires a bit of computer knowledge. One of WoW's bigget selling points and why it's reached so many people is that it runs on the crappiest computer, and the learning curve for that game is extremely simple. The game itself is incredibly linear which maximizes the feeling of progress. There's not really even 20 things to do much less 200 things to do.

So, while it may not feel as addictive to some of us who have been deeply involved in muds, it's much more addictive to the people who wouldn't know how to log onto a mud if it smacked them in the face. There's also a lot of effort put into mudding. You pretty much have to type or use a voice recognition program in order to interface with the mud. You pretty much have to read (or again, use a voice recognition program), and ultimately, most muds have more to offer than hack 'n slash which then gives you non-linear progression. Everyone who has played WoW knows that you can basically cruise-control even while raiding. It's a false feeling of accomplishment with very little effort.

So, it's not just jealousy. It's not just hype, and it's not just careless blame. WoW's accessibility added to its linear progression style adds up to a lot of college drop-outs. Granted, the people dropping out were probably never going to be your deans list students, but they may have graduated if they didn't get their feeling of accomplishment from a game. :) Kudos to those of us who wouldn't have failed out even if there had been WoW in our days, but that doesn't mean it's not a real problem for others.

Re: FCC Blames WoW
 

Personally, I resent WoW because it steals the attention of so many people who could otherwise be capable MUDders. On the other hand, it may be beneficial since the proportion of drooling idiots on WoW appears to be a lot higher than on most MUDs, so WoW, Guild Wars, and their ilk may serve the valuable purpose of keeping the lower orders away from quality roleplaying. :P

Re: FCC Blames WoW
 

The PK, quest, infrastructure, auctioning, crafting, and dungeon systems aren't unique individually, but I haven't seen a mud that puts it all together as well as WoW does.

Does anyone know the impact on society and the economy?