LAGWAR | GAMING'S BEST IN TOP NOTCH MEDIOCRITY

She might be too easy, but is WoW?

People love a challenge.  Completing something difficult is always sweeter than finishing a cake walk.  Ever beat the “special” kid in Ping-pong?  Didn’t feel as good as beating the Asian ace, did it?  Well a lot of life is that way.  A challenge makes the feeling of completing a goal even better.  When you take away the challenge inherent in something you also take away some of the enjoyment you get from it.  The same holds true for WoW.  Recently, both in online blogs and even from some of my esteemed colleagues, WoW has been accused of going soft, for being easy.  But has it?  How do you even judge for “hard” an MMO is?  With other games completion is the mark.  If a game is easy you can finish the game with little difficulty, a hard game on the other hand takes a lot more work.  But MMO’s don’t really end, they have no credit roll, no fat ladies sing.  So what is completion of an MMO like WoW?  I think before you can ask if WoW has gone soft you need a definition, and since I am running this show I will give you one: Beating an MMO is when you have fulfilled three main accomplishments – you are at max level, you have completed all the content (dungeons), and you have the best gear for your class.  There, now that we have a definition of “beating” WoW let’s see if the game has really gotten easier from Vanilla WoW to Arthas himself-let’s see if we are facing off against near deities or the “special” kid.

Leveling:  Same.

It's 80 not 60 anymore.

No one will argue that to have “beaten” WoW you have to be level 80.  So is it easier to get to level 80 than it was to get to level 60 when the game launched?  I don’t think so.  But don’t take my word for it, let me explain.  To me leveling starts the first time you log in with a new character and ends when your experience bar moves about as much as Joan Rivers face.  Dead still.  People assume that since they are gaining levels faster that leveling as a whole is somehow easier.  False!  Remember we have tacked on 20 levels since the launch of the game.  Zero to 80 is the new zero to 60.  And while going from 1-60 is much faster than it used to be, going from 1-max level still takes a good amount of time – Long enough to keep power-levelers in business.  The time it takes us to go from level one babies to level 80 demigods is no shorter than it used to take us to go to 60, in fact it may even be a little longer.

Dungeon difficulty: same but different.

Arthas and C'thun could square off...if C'thun had any uh legs.

Alright so you got to 80.  Now it is time to work your way through the nefarious forces of evil until you reach Arthas himself.  Well, not quite yet, but soon.  But the real question is – have dungeons gotten easier since the likes AQ and Naxx?  Or in third grade vernacular, who would win in a fight Arthas or C’thun?  In this instance I think it’s pretty much a push.  Raiding has certainly changed, I will give you that.  And casual (read not as good) raiders are able to do more than ever.  But I think sometimes this is mistaken as the game getting unduly easier as a whole.  The game hasn’t gotten easier, it has rather added additional content that is less difficult.  OK, even when I read that it seems confusing, let me explain.  Sarth 3D, Algalon, Anub’arak (TOGC version) are legitimately hard, like C’thun and Kel’Thuzad hard – even like Onyxia with lots of deep breaths hard.  It’s just that now there is additional content like Sarth no D, normal mode Ulduar, or Anub’arak (Azjol-Nerub version) thrown in.  The hard parts of the game have stayed hard, there is just more content now, and it happens to be approachable by players of less…err…focus (*cough* skill).

Gearing up: Easier, a lot.

What these old things? They're just badge gear.

So you have reached the plateau of level 80, you’ve smashed Arthas (soon) in the face and made him stop dying his hair that ridiculous white color, so what’s left?  Only getting the best of everything, in gear that is.  So your last section…since Vanilla WoW, has it gotten easier to deck ourselves out in the pretty purple garb?  The last two sections I think I made a pretty good argument for “no” or at least “not really answers” but I don’t have anything here.  Gearing out in WOTLK is ridiculously easy compared to Vanilla WoW.  It has happened slowly but surely.  The introduction of badge gear, PvP gear, heroic gear, high end craftable gear: all these things have shifted the way we gear characters.  You don’t have to be in the top 1% of players to get the very best in gear anymore.  Even 10 man raids have contributed to the trend.  Think about it.  Before you had 39 other people all hoping that elusive tier whatever helm of kick-ass dropped, and they were all rolling on it.  Now there are only 9.  So for all those haters out there, I will spot you this…gearing up in WoW now is easier than it ever has been.  Purple doesn’t only come from 40 foot towers of flame carrying huge hammers.  It comes from 10 mans, from heroics, and even from recipes.

So the question remains…is this where WoW gets its “special” kid rep from?  Not from leveling or raiding but from the ease of collection of shiny purple things?  And if you do…is that bad?