Hyperbole is the lifeblood of many games and definitely the staple of a lot of forums. In today's WoW Factor, MMORPG.com's Joe Sanicky talks about hyperbole as it applies to World of Warcraft. Check out Joe's excellent column and then weigh in with a few thoughts of your own in the comments.

Have you ever heard a comment such as the ones above uttered on a gaming forum before? No doubt you have, and it is hardly surprising! World of Warcraft is a part of our society’s cultural identity concerning nerds, gamers, and MMOs alike, so it stands to reason that any archetypal trope or meme associated with typical internet interactions would be present three fold regarding Blizzard’s pinnacle of success, eh? After all the idea that it is cool to bash World of Warcraft seems just as prevalent within gaming culture as said mannerisms and sentiments are. So go ahead and check out some World of Warcraft forums for yourself and see! I’ll be right back while I go read some forums.

Read more of Joe Sanicky's The WoW Factor: Insert Hyperbole = Receive Attention.

I don't get it....

"That is the heart of the matter is it not readers?  Almost any time we see an egregiously exaggerated opinion posted as unapproachable fact it must certainly stem from that person’s own experiences with the game!  All of these instances of vitriol and vehemence towards an obviously successful product and enterprise aren’t necessarily the fault of the game itself but the players being unhappy with the game and being either unwilling or unable to express their disdain in more civilized and productive terms!  Alas reader this most surely is the answer to this WoW-old question!  I have solved the mystery, even if no-one wanted it solved!"

That. Everything that follows that point is an example Elocke.

Joeseph,

While I don't play the game anymore, I have played it for many years with my children who are now 23, 21, 19, and 17.  There were many hours of fun that my kids and I had together, but that was the key.  Even in our own homes we'd have team speak up and we'd run dungeons or raid cities or towns looking for world pvp. Is it the most in depth game I've ever played? ... certainly not. I've played UO, DAoC, Eve, and now Perpetuum... However, I didn't let the WoW's simplicity stop me from having a good time.

Given your age, I'm not sure how much real world experience you're able to bring to the table. Here's a fact that you seem to be missing... it's just a game. If it's more than that, there are issues beyond artwork in a game that you need to address.  I am well past twice your age so, pardon me, but I think I'll give you a little advice.  Life moves forward at a pretty hefty clip, and I wouldn't waste my time playing a game I didn't like. World of Warcraft served it's purpose for me.  It was an easy game that I could play with my kids when I got home from work.  It was worth every penny in that respect.

Now that one son is a high school teacher, one working on his Masters in math, my daughter is a struggling student/musician, and my youngest son is getting ready to graduate high school, those days have passed.  I miss them.  I didn't enjoy the game because the game was great, but because I had the best guildies in the world. That's what made it fun. It was truly my Neverland.

I roll my eyes when I see posts like yours, because it's your fault your not having a good time, not the developers. 

I prefer the insults like:

"Go back to WOW" when refering to a less mentally able players of none EQ clones. The ones that do not get full looting or none quest based games.

"Go back to WOW" is an excellent phrase overall to insult another MMO player as WOW is the lowest common denominator in terms of MMO games thus enabling it appeal to the masses. 

 this site seems to follow this same practice in regards to TOR from columns written about "why I'm just not excited about this game" to article titles like "TOR and welfare epics" it's klnd of ironic that this story focuses on posters doing this with WOW and ignores that this is the journalism tact this site reles on often to create traffic.

Cataclysm made WoW better.

This article was unclear and bounced around several subjects, not really focusing on one single topic.

Is the author telling us people use Hyperbole when describing WOW sometimes? (but not all of the time?)

Is he upset with the drops and or artwork in WOW?

Or, is he just trying to receive attention like many of us here on MMORPG.com? 

I'll go with the last one.

Originally posted by Doozerglue

Joeseph,

While I don't play the game anymore, I have played it for many years with my children who are now 23, 21, 19, and 17.  There were many hours of fun that my kids and I had together, but that was the key.  Even in our own homes we'd have team speak up and we'd run dungeons or raid cities or towns looking for world pvp. Is it the most in depth game I've ever played? ... certainly not. I've played UO, DAoC, Eve, and now Perpetuum... However, I didn't let the WoW's simplicity stop me from having a good time.

Given your age, I'm not sure how much real world experience you're able to bring to the table. Here's a fact that you seem to be missing... it's just a game. If it's more than that, there are issues beyond artwork in a game that you need to address.  I am well past twice your age so, pardon me, but I think I'll give you a little advice.  Life moves forward at a pretty hefty clip, and I wouldn't waste my time playing a game I didn't like. World of Warcraft served it's purpose for me.  It was an easy game that I could play with my kids when I got home from work.  It was worth every penny in that respect.

Now that one son is a high school teacher, one working on his Masters in math, my daughter is a struggling student/musician, and my youngest son is getting ready to graduate high school, those days have passed.  I miss them.  I didn't enjoy the game because the game was great, but because I had the best guildies in the world. That's what made it fun. It was truly my Neverland.

I roll my eyes when I see posts like yours, because it's your fault your not having a good time, not the developers. 

Wow... 

A mature gamer, actually making sense on this forum?

All very, very good points. 

Bravo!

Originally posted by Doozerglue

Joeseph,

While I don't play the game anymore, I have played it for many years with my children who are now 23, 21, 19, and 17.  There were many hours of fun that my kids and I had together, but that was the key.  Even in our own homes we'd have team speak up and we'd run dungeons or raid cities or towns looking for world pvp. Is it the most in depth game I've ever played? ... certainly not. I've played UO, DAoC, Eve, and now Perpetuum... However, I didn't let the WoW's simplicity stop me from having a good time.

Given your age, I'm not sure how much real world experience you're able to bring to the table. Here's a fact that you seem to be missing... it's just a game. If it's more than that, there are issues beyond artwork in a game that you need to address.  I am well past twice your age so, pardon me, but I think I'll give you a little advice.  Life moves forward at a pretty hefty clip, and I wouldn't waste my time playing a game I didn't like. World of Warcraft served it's purpose for me.  It was an easy game that I could play with my kids when I got home from work.  It was worth every penny in that respect.

Now that one son is a high school teacher, one working on his Masters in math, my daughter is a struggling student/musician, and my youngest son is getting ready to graduate high school, those days have passed.  I miss them.  I didn't enjoy the game because the game was great, but because I had the best guildies in the world. That's what made it fun. It was truly my Neverland.

I roll my eyes when I see posts like yours, because it's your fault your not having a good time, not the developers. 

 

Im pretty sure he was trying to make your point exactly.

Hyperbole has been going on forever.  People still to this say stay idiotic stuff like 'PoK portals killed EQ'.  yeah, PoK portals were a fairly large community request (or some form of easier travel), were very well within lore (if druids and wizards could port, why couldnt they focus that magic onto an object?  only natural), and didnt kill the size or scope of the world.  Also EQ continued to grow and thrive for several years after Planes of Power.

Its people that grow bored of the game (natural after 3+ years) or have other factors affecting their expereince (friends move on, rl makes it tougher, etc) looking to pin their personal things onto a game designer decision.

There are some cases where designer decisions do severely hurt the game (Trials of Atlantis) but those are few and far between.

WiW devs have made many questionable decisions since midway though Wrath though.  but the game isn't ruined.

Originally posted by Doozerglue

Joeseph,

While I don't play the game anymore, I have played it for many years with my children who are now 23, 21, 19, and 17.  There were many hours of fun that my kids and I had together, but that was the key.  Even in our own homes we'd have team speak up and we'd run dungeons or raid cities or towns looking for world pvp. Is it the most in depth game I've ever played? ... certainly not. I've played UO, DAoC, Eve, and now Perpetuum... However, I didn't let the WoW's simplicity stop me from having a good time.

Given your age, I'm not sure how much real world experience you're able to bring to the table. Here's a fact that you seem to be missing... it's just a game. If it's more than that, there are issues beyond artwork in a game that you need to address.  I am well past twice your age so, pardon me, but I think I'll give you a little advice.  Life moves forward at a pretty hefty clip, and I wouldn't waste my time playing a game I didn't like. World of Warcraft served it's purpose for me.  It was an easy game that I could play with my kids when I got home from work.  It was worth every penny in that respect.

Now that one son is a high school teacher, one working on his Masters in math, my daughter is a struggling student/musician, and my youngest son is getting ready to graduate high school, those days have passed.  I miss them.  I didn't enjoy the game because the game was great, but because I had the best guildies in the world. That's what made it fun. It was truly my Neverland.

I roll my eyes when I see posts like yours, because it's your fault your not having a good time, not the developers. 

 Best post ever! No kidding!

That's what gaming is and should be about.

It seems lots of people (and I admit me too) seem to forget at times and that we start taking gaming a little too serious.

"catclysm made wow better" is just like saying "republicans made the senate better" sorry wrong. This game has been going downhill since they took out all the original devs and stuck them on Titan and when they stuck Mr. Marine Biologist in charge. The fact of the matter is this, they stopped doing meaningful fun developement and used minor very recent meaningful fun developement on this game only as a last resort when they lost 1 million customers in two months time all at once. The practices of the devs in this game are in question by myself and others not the game itself althought repeating the same content, styles, concepts every patch/expansion does make for a dull game as well.

Originally posted by itgrowls

"catclysm made wow better" is just like saying "republicans made the senate better" sorry wrong. This game has been going downhill since they took out all the original devs and stuck them on Titan and when they stuck Mr. Marine Biologist in charge. The fact of the matter is this, they stopped doing meaningful fun developement and used minor very recent meaningful fun developement on this game only as a last resort when they lost 1 million customers in two months time all at once. The practices of the devs in this game are in question by myself and others not the game itself althought repeating the same content, styles, concepts every patch/expansion does make for a dull game as well.

 

Hmm..mayhap I'll write the next article on the topic of how gamers tend to assume advanced knowledge of game design and develpment while mixing in a healthy amount of condescension.

Thanks for the idea!

I think my brain auto deletes this stuff from my memory because I don't even notice or bother to notice this stuff anymore. So I hardly think it deserved the wall of text it got.

Originally posted by Xzen

I think my brain auto deletes this stuff from my memory because I don't even notice or bother to notice this stuff anymore. So I hardly think it deserved the wall of text it got.

 

Your brain auto-deletes meticulously hand-crafted satire?

:(

both of them are level 25, EXACTLY! why? because the one with the tabard is leveling his 10th alt and the person next to him is trying to to for his first time get into a party and do some dungeons, little did he know that hes in a way too high leveled place, and his guildmate is trying to take him to his first dungeons, and that journey just to go to shadowfang keep will last longer than for the belf with the tabard to get to level 85.

Originally posted by Kyleran

This article was unclear and bounced around several subjects, not really focusing on one single topic.

Is the author telling us people use Hyperbole when describing WOW sometimes? (but not all of the time?)

Is he upset with the drops and or artwork in WOW?

Or, is he just trying to receive attention like many of us here on MMORPG.com? 

I'll go with the last one.

Was the article supposed to be funny?  I must have lost my sense of humor or something.  All I saw was a fairly serious description of how boring the game has become and how it was fun...the first time...and not so much now, but gee wow we'll keep right on playing it even though we're bored shitless.  Man, I don't know about anyone else, but I don't find that very funny.  /shrug Maybe it's satirical. I'm not always good at picking up on satire. I'm more of a brash sarcasm sort of person.

Originally posted by sanman7890

Originally posted by itgrowls

"catclysm made wow better" is just like saying "republicans made the senate better" sorry wrong. This game has been going downhill since they took out all the original devs and stuck them on Titan and when they stuck Mr. Marine Biologist in charge. The fact of the matter is this, they stopped doing meaningful fun developement and used minor very recent meaningful fun developement on this game only as a last resort when they lost 1 million customers in two months time all at once. The practices of the devs in this game are in question by myself and others not the game itself althought repeating the same content, styles, concepts every patch/expansion does make for a dull game as well.

 

Hmm..mayhap I'll write the next article on the topic of how gamers tend to assume advanced knowledge of game design and develpment while mixing in a healthy amount of condescension.

Thanks for the idea!

Condescension goes hand in hand with hyperbole don't you know?

Originally posted by surstroming

both of them are level 25, EXACTLY! why? because the one with the tabard is leveling his 10th alt and the person next to him is trying to to for his first time get into a party and do some dungeons, little did he know that hes in a way too high leveled place, and his guildmate is trying to take him to his first dungeons, and that journey just to go to shadowfang keep will last longer than for the belf with the tabard to get to level 85.

 

I'd hate to spoil the question posed about our atire, but the character I was playing is 68, and it is my main, and I don't have an 85.