How morons, Titan and Diablo 3 fuck WoW

I can't help but wonder about the things I see in Azeroth these days. Last night I had the pleasant company of an arms-spec warrior, let's call him Bob, who was wielding a dagger. You know, one of those small, pointy, one-handed things with lots of agility on them. Probably, because it was epic. Nothing ground-breaking, mind you - just the basic crap you'll get your hands on as a freshly-dinged level 85. And guys like him are today's gamers. Guys like him are the industry's target audience.

Bob obviously lacks the ability to read and understand basic text. You see, when he picked his character's skill tree, the game actually highlighted a certain talent: Two-Handed Weapon Specializaion. That's right, Bob - choosing the Arms tree means you're good at using two-handed weapons. Is a dagger a two-handed weapon, Bob? I don't think so. Let's not even get into the large damage penalty you're dealing to yourself there or how agility doesn't do shit for you. Let's not even begin thinking of all the stuff you could do with your empty off-hand. You're too stupid to read, too stupid to understand your class, yet you're level 85 and you're clad in epic gear. Because WoW is for you, it caters to you, it wants to make sure you can get all the stuff you could ever dream of, no matter how slow you are.

Does anyone remember the time where you actually had to understand what the fuck you're doing in order to get anywhere in a game? Do you remember where obtaining powerful items actually meant something, where you could feel a sense of reward and achievement? When I see Bob next to me, a drooling idiot, who couldn't wipe his own butt without help, wearing nothing but epic gear and a fucking dagger, I start losing ambition.

Sure, I get to use fancy arena gear, so I'll always be a step ahead of Bob. But in all honesty, getting that stuff requires about 20 minutes of effort per week, add your daily or rated BG for a couple extra points and that's all there is to it. There's no real effort involved, I don't really feel like I've achieved anything when I grab yet another ridiculously powerful piece of gear and to be brutally honest, I'm hating every minute of it. The only reason I'm doing this to myself is my better half, who insists in having me as her arena partner. And since I've grown quite fond of the sex we have, there is little I can do other than shut up and tag along.

Okay, there are heroic dungeons and hard mode raids, many of them being so brutally tough, that they feel entirely dijointed from the rest of the game. I guess that's what WoW is all about: Relativity. If a huge portion of the game is too fucking easy and another is insanely difficult, then on average it's probably just right.

But it's not just the idiots, the way everyone can have everything, the way the game practically plays itself by now. It's not even the fact that Blizzard can't be arsed to moderate the RP-Realms or the god damn trade channel or get rid of the botters, cheaters and AFKers in pvp. It's how they seem to completely neglect the game, because they're busy playing Diablo 3 or working on Titan.

Take the newest range of armor sets, for instance. They look as though they were taken straight out of some crappy Korean F2P-grinder:

What the fuck happened here? PINK burning spikes? Fire on a helmet, right in front of the fucking face? What the hell were they thinking, if anything?

But it's not just the utterly stupid armor sets, the WWE-style championship belts or how they come up with more and more "premium" items and services to nickel and dime you to death on top of your monthly subscription. It's the actual content - or lack thereof.
Why do we have to fight Nefarian AGAIN? Why Ragnaros? We had the Burning Steppes, the Searing Gorge, the whole damn Blackrock and don't get me started on Molten fucking Core! Do we *really* need even more crap full of fire and lava and orange baddies? Do we really have to repeat the same old bosses we grew tired of all those years ago? So what are we gonna fight in the next content update? Illidan Stormrage?

But the one thing that puts me off and drives me away from WoW more than anything is the ever more apparent lack of love and polish. Remember when everything on there just worked? If you sign up for BGs these days, the notification will pop up again and again and again, 38 quazillion times, producing the annoying popup sound every single time and forcing you to hammer away at the Okay-button like an idiot until the damn thing finally registers your click. It's not game-breaking, but it's been there for how many months now?

If you spend some time doing arenas or BGs, you will also notice how the countdown timer will slowly wander a little closer towards the bottom of your screen at the beginning of every match until it disappears altogether. That problem had been there for just as long as the actual onscreen timer, but nobody cares to fix it. Add the occasional display bugs that make your arena teams invisible or show offline guild members active and playing all week long or how Strand of the Ancients randomly forces you into 1st person view and you can't help but wonder why nobody ever cares to look into that crap. They're probably too busy thinking of expensive new premium services. Or they're too damn busy working on games, which are obviously not World of Warcraft.

-Cat