Shattered Kingdoms

I'm not sure what concept you're trying to push here: Is it that WoW is less time-consuming or somehow more rewarding than SK because your characters are infinitely preserved? Is it that WoW values your time more than SK? I disagree.

WoW makes such a mockery of your time that it forces you to run the same dungeon instances dozens of times just to progress to the next instance, and forces you to perform the same daily quests time after time, adding up to the hundreds, if you want to achieve the best that is possible through the game: And on top of that if you want to reach the end-game raiding content you have to dedicate, often in advance, two or more evenings a week to run through the same raid instances the same way. On top of that, the vast majority of boss strategies consist of the following: 1. Either spread out or clump together, 2. Move away from the crap on the floor, and 3. kill the adds. Add in one, maybe two unique variations on that, and you have nearly every boss fight that you're going to have to run dozens of times to get the gear that you need to kill the next boss dozens of times. Every raid boss drop is like the enchant system in SK, except with a 7 day cooldown.

In SK, you get what you see. Locate a ring on some bad boss? You kill him, and you take it. You don't kill him and "maybe" take it. It's there. In WoW you can kill a boss 20 times and never see the drop that you're looking for, not to mention that as soon as the next content patch comes out, all of that gear will be obseleted. Yay for valuing the players' time.


Your overall point, however, which seems to be that WoW is somehow "more rewarding" than SK, is what is nonsensical. A game is rewarding because it's fun to play, not because some lines of code stored in data somewhere will forever enshrine your personal work. If the game isn't fun, then don't play. People played the original Tetris because it was fun even though there was no save button. People played the original Final Fantasy because they liked it. People generally play DnD because they enjoy the story, gameplay and interaction with others, and it is largely for those same reasons that people play SK. If you feel the need to have all of your time spent within SK to have some permanent unique effect on the game itself, you're probably in the wrong place.

In other words, if you're looking to take away more than simply the experience of SK from SK, then you should probably re-examine why you're playing.

Bye buddy....

*cries in the corner*

I guess these recent characters are an example, no question, of SK at its finest. The recent losses to the playerscape, in terms of the personalities, cut deeply into the flesh and blood of the game, and I am among those who hope that their masters aren't going far.

But when it comes to passing judgment on those who do drift somewhere, I think we tend to oversimplify an option we haven't chosen, if only to assure ourselves we made the right choice.

@Edoras:
I don't want to turn this into a tangent, so I'll handle it line-item style and get back to the main point. There will be a wall of text. Unfortunately.



I don't think I can compare how much SK and WoW value my time. What I know is that WoW wants my money. I don't know what SK wants. SK wants me to be happy, I like to think? But all it asks me for is my time. WoW doesn't even care if I call once-in-awhile, it won't pawn my stuff. It's like a perfect lover.

Raiding is Bad
Raiding is an optional subset of WoW. You could probably just play like I did, questing, exploring... I was a tourist in WoW, like I was a tourist in SK. In both worlds, what I wanted to do was to drink up the experiences, to Know the people and places in that Biblical sense, and so on. Raiding is the top, competitive tier of World of Warcraft. Enchanting is part of the top tier of SK. It makes sense that both are grinds. WoW is insidious because it obligates you to spend more time than you might need to get what you want (limits to how fast you can get tokens to keep you subscribed.)
But is that "this is so repetitive" challenge true of SK as well? I think it is. Especially in SK, where some choices are very superior to others. The diversity in the environment is false. Why put fancy Bec de Corbins in a weapon shop when we all know we want yo-yos?

You get what you see?
You locate a ring, and know where and how to get it from just that? Congratulations, you've probably already played the game. Why don't you have the ring, then?
Even if it might take more than one attempt to get it, I like knowing that if I kill Illidan long enough, I can get a cool sword even if some other guy has one, too, who never plays the same time I do.
I like knowing that it isn't considered against the rules to look up information that I know other players trade and, sometimes, keep to themselves.
You don't get what you see in SK as much as you get to keep other people from doing so.

More Rewarding
WoW is visually appealing in a way SK can't be, and WoW lacks the diversity of content SK has by some measure. You're absolutely right though, games are rewarding when they're fun, and nowhere else.
My point is that fun you take from something is a function of the fun inside of it minus the anti-fun it took getting there. Look at leveling up: I had fun exploring the different regions in WoW, in Morrowind, in Fable, in freaking Breath of Fire... in SK? I run into typos, death traps, quests without rewards in stock... and some bad writing. Really bad writing. I won't say my experience is the only experience, but I will say that it is very bold of you to do my math for me. Only I know how much fun I have from any game, because only I know how much I've given to it.

I'm less concerned about the permanent effects I have on the game and more about the permanence of my achievements within it. If I created an amazing paladin, why do I want to have to make him again? Equip her again? Enchant it again? Why play the same game with the same content with the same people? It isn't like we're all great actors able to take new perspectives. A major portion of us are known without even announcing our identities. You don't need to save in a game like tetris, because you don't have to make a character to play it. If I could just possess a random NPC and roleplay, and maybe try some combat, sure, I'd be singing a different tune about this game, but you don't even get to save your character in this one. It's like the worst sort of Tetris, the kind where you can only keep what you have by giving more. I'd much rather spend a few dollars than worry about whether I'm going to magically lose my equipment because I had a busy month, or ran into a jerk.


It all comes down to features desired and opportunity costs, and for many people, the equation SK offers just isn't attractive as a place to spend time when there are other game models out there designed for longer-lasting, less demanding accomplishments and experiences. It is really not right to say any one game mechanic is superior, unless you qualify the superlative.

Everything I could think of wanting to do in SK, I can think of a competitor who will let me do it with less hassle or cost. There's a unique suffering here I can't find anywhere else, though, and that's why I stay. Because it hurts so good.

tl:dr;
I say that WoW is better than SK in terms of being newbie friendly and having scalable experiences. I can play alone, I can play with 39 men, I can play for five minutes before my next class, I can play for three hours straight on a friday night... and in all those situations, I don't have to depend on the freaking stars aligning to have a good time. I just have to enjoy myself. Each time I do it, I'm glad I came. It's like real life.

So in conclusion, I hope these warm bodies aren't going far. It would be a colder game without them.

I hate to steal the thunder from Jaren, but I must say that I hated Wow. I played for about a month, and it was crappola. People's names were stupid, there was nothing resembling RP, the gnome city was idiotic trash with tanks and planes being built.

It felt like the game was make for people about age six and up, and yes those are cool people, but I don't go sit down and play with them in my free time.

Age of Conan was much better but it still wasn't "right" as far as my take on the Conan books was concerned. I also am not looking forward to the new Conan movie coming out a movie in which the actor portraying Conan is black. That to me is like getting Paul Ruebens to act as say Nelson Mandella in a biographical movie about him. It just doesn't fit.

If these last remarks are offensive please remove them. That last thing I want to do is insult any of Sk's black players. I already feel uncomfortable mentioning race on this forum.

To set the record straight here. If you've read the actual R.E.H stories, the ones he wrote himself, you would know that the Cimmerians were the fictional precursers to the Scotts, and that Conan actually was covered in body hair almost as thick as a pelt on his chest. In marvel comics SSOC and others (which I thought were awsome as a youth) Conan was hairless and very muscular but that's actually not really what R.E.H described.

So to get back on Topic, I briefly Played Normanelesh who was supposed to be part of an OOC thing Jaren and another player and I were going to do. I kept vanishing for work so it never happened. Meh. Come back soon and bring some people with you plz.