This week has been for pondering over the status of WoW in the MMO genre as whole. Sure it's big, it's beautifull and it's blogged about a lot, but at the same time its the initial touching ground on MMO's for a huge amount of people. Year in and year out there are new players joining the game which has grown to be an institution and phenomenon rather than just another MMO in that particular gaming niche.
While reading the blogroll I have -and some sidesteps from the posts I read-, I came to a revelation. Again, you might say, as the posts of this week have been more or less the same: notes and realizations of different things in the game and it's relations to other MMOs.
That is, how real are the concerns and opinions we in the blogosphere bring out to the 'average player' of WoW?
Or how closely our thoughts and thinking correspond with the ones of a player who has never played any other MMO than WoW?
And of course this leads to the question, to whom are we really writing and bringing out thoughts out to comment...
The class specific blogs, which serve that certain audience serve their own function, but how many of those are read by the -supposed- millions of possible players of that particular class? How many of the readers are as well versed in their class as the one who is putting down her/his thoughts about how the class should be played and how it works in theorycraft?
And how many newcomers to the game really find the blog which would help them onwards to advance the game the way it was 'meant' to be progressed?
Not many I suppose. Like I have stated earlier, it's hard for me to find time to read the websites and guides on how to enhance my playing and gear and how to tackle the instance bosses. As if that wasn't enough, I know that it's neigh impossible to remember the strategies at the moment of truth, when encountering the boss for the first (ten) time. I learn by doing, not by reading.
I seriously doubt the concerns the blogosphere voices out are of any concern to the average WoW player. The Joe or Jane Doe, casual hardcore occasionally raiding daily quester is happy and content with the content Blizzard hands out and when it is handed out only because they are not in a rush to experience it all and play for fun only. Sometimes the newest movie or the TV-show is more fun, so they do not play. So what.
WoW is just entertainment. More that than a game.
So why bother?
