NEWER, SHINIER FORMS OF ENDGAME WORK

This pattern repeats itself everywhere.  While the WoW devs are clearly aware of the normal players' needs, they can't seem to stop themselves.  More DICC content continues to make its way into the game.  Players who participate continue to receive superior loot.  What's more, any time a game system becomes less DICCish, the rewards are muted and (relatively speaking) downgraded.  Any system that becomes more DICCish undergoes the opposite effect. 

I'd like to point out that these assertions caused screechy howls of livid, apoplectic outrage.  Some readers suggested that I was only referring to “old WoW”, and that I had not played TBC, WotLK, or, for that matter, EQ or DAoC.  Essentially, the objections went something like this: “First of all, you idiot, raiding is a lot easier than ever before.  No one needs to be keyed, (you big jerk) the number of people required to raid is smaller and, jackass, the content is temporally shorter.  Also, you ugly moron, for the people that don't want to raid, they just run heroics, get Emblems, or do daily quests to get their epics.  And, besides all that, you're an ugly phallus.”

A man does not receive compliments like that every day.  :)  And believe me, I understand that access to heroics and raids is easier than ever, that raids are both easier and shorter, and that options for non-raiders exist.  I am also aware of the increased accessibility that 3.2 will soon bring to the game.  However, the above arguments really only make my point for me.  Certainly it's been packaged differently, but it's *still* artificially difficult and time consuming content.  Is anyone enjoying grinding the same instances, again and again, for Emblems?  How about doing dailies over, and over, and over, for weeks on end, just to get an epic?  And raiding Naxx to get gear for Ulduar, then raiding Ulduar just to get gear for the upcoming Argent Colosseum?  Is any of that fun?

The most recent forms of DICC in WoW has changed, and will change again once 3.2 goes live.  But it's still extremely grind heavy, it still rewards huge commitments of time (and thus, disproportionately, the so-called “hardcore” player), and it still ends up making the average player a relatively underpowered, non-heroic, second class citizen in a game he loves.  What's more, because he must log on and work instead of having fun, the normal player enjoys the game less. None of this kind of endgame content is fun.  It's all grind, all the time.  It's all still DICC.


REPEATING HISTORY

Now WoW finds itself in the exact same position, for the exact same reasons, that EQ and DAoC were in, years ago.  WoW is still king, and is still the biggest, most popular MMO in the world.  Yet it continues to disproportionately reward “hardcore” players, willing to put in hour after hour of DICC.  Normal players, capable of grinding out only a handful of epics, become second class 'heroes'.  The game has also turned something that should be fun – everyday gameplay - into a repetitive grind.  WoW, like it's predecessors, is in the slow process of alienating its players; they want to feel like first-rate heroes, and they want fun, adventuresome content.  WoW gives them neither.  Unfortunately, the current state of WoW makes them easily tempted by any new MMO that comes along, and offers them that kind of fun gameplay. 

And it doesn't have to be this way. 


A VERY DIFFERENT ENDGAME

Players are, due to the state of the MMO genre, perfectly willing to accept this kind of endgame content.  I contend, however, that this acceptance is simply because they haven't seen a viable alternative. 

Imagine, for a moment, that the WoW developers hadn't chosen to copy the endgame content of EverQuest and Dark Age of Camelot.  Suppose they never designed their first raid, never screwed around with the drudgery of repetitive quests, never wasted their valuable time offering incentives to players to do the same content repeatedly.  Suppose, instead, they implemented something completely different, and completely non-DICCish, in the endgame.  Consider what the WoW endgame might look like if Blizzard had avoided spending endless developer resources and man hours on DICC. 

More Instances

What if the developers had devoted their energy into simply designing *many* more official Blizzard instances?  How many would we have currently?  Certainly dozens more, and of a greater variety, than we have now.  As a side effect, these instances would likely become extremely varied and far more creative than the ones we have now (which, admittedly, are already good). 

This kind of energy devoted to instanced content would likely result in some highly imaginative content.  In fact, many instances might actually approach the creativity that defines the Gygax-Arneson model, something no other MMO has ever accomplished.  These abundant, highly varied, professionally designed “official” instances would be a lot of fun for everyone.  The fact that there would be a lot more of them keeps the game interesting for all the players, both hardcore and casual.

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