To begin with no this isn't a pro WOW thread, and no I'm not a WOW fanboy.  I did play it for a time but don't anymore.

I notice many people seem to hate WOW.  Why ?

Did you play it and something piss you off ?

Is it some attempt at validating having played another game for 4-5 years when everyone else went to WOW ?

Do you hate it just to hate it and be emo because the majority seem to like it ?

Or is it simply some aspect of the game itself, graphics, community... ?

Lastly, if you haven't played it how can you judge a game unless you base your opinion on assumptions and heresay.  

You should simply ignore people who seem able to "hate" a game. I understand if people dislike certain games, but hate is such a strong word and seems to lose it's true meaning. In my opinion people who are able to hate a game should not get involved with games. Dislike...okay...but hate.....common now.....

Simply put: Don't ask yourself why people hate, wouldn't it be far more intresting and enjoyeble to see/read/hear why people might LIKE/LOVE something instead.

1. It's cool to hate the top dog.

2. Despite being incredibly fun, it's not like WOW is perfect (ie some of the "hate" isn't actually hate, but fair criticism) 

3. Different players have different tastes, but tend to post like theirs are the only tastes that matter.

(EDIT: Oops, didn't mean for this post to look like *I* hate WOW.  I don't.  I'm bored with WOW, but it's kept my interest literally thousands more hours than most games.)

For the same, dumb reasons why people seem to Love WoW.

Another one of these topics?????????  Do they nevr stop on this site????  Let the wow flaming commence.

Alot of the trolls on this forum lack the intelligence or maturity to appreciate another person point of view, let alone somebody liking another MMO other than WoW god forbid, hence the 'hate' 

Played at launch to lvl 35 and got bored and quit till about 2008.

I had 3 80s and had raid gear. The end game content is usually really good, until you get to the point where you've done every one of them 15 times and there is nothing else to do. 1-79 is completely pointless, all it is, is training for new players... but usually they can get a good grasp on the game in 1-20 and if they don't, it's because they picked one of the classes that have to lvl a different spec than what they should play endgame at.... which is like half the classes btw. Then you end up at endgame, with freaking priests who are strictly DPS because they had to lvl that way and don't know anything else. (I never let them in my group on principle)

It's not really an MMORPG it's just an MMORTUD (MMO Raid Till You Die) game. There really isn't much decent content in any of the game that isn't just a boring grind and even raiding/dungeons turn into a boring grind after you've done them 3 or 4 times.

The reason I hate it is because it's attracted so many people to the genre who don't know any different. WoW is not what an MMO should be. It promotes segregation of community, not a unified community where you develop relationships in a virtual world. It has almost 0 content that's worth playing, until you get to endgame.... and is that really what MMOs are about? Endgame? What about all the old games that took months to get to endgame even if you were trying to? You can get 1-80 in a couple weeks if you know what you're doing. Nothing matters till you get endgame. "Oh you forgot to get rep with these guys? Go back and do it later when you hit 80, np".

Why can't you just start at 80? It doesn't make any sense. You're just wasting time at 1-79?

Probably my biggest issue:

Altoholic? NP. WoW caters to this more than it should. What about the days when your character was you? You weren't Jim Bob the Hunter, Jim Boob the Female Druid, Jimmy Bob the Priest, AND Bob Mij the Warlock. It took too much damn time to develop your character and to have all sorts of different aspects to your character that was strictly you. Nobody else had the same mix of stuff you did, be it gear, skills, abilities, etc. Everyone in WoW is exactly the same. Everyone wants t9.5 gear and doesn't care about anything else.

There was a guy in one of my guilds one time that had 15 lvl 80s. That's just wrong.

I don't hate it but I don't think it is that great either.

Most of the gameplay is just too easy for me and I think the lore could have been better written. It have some good points too of course like the polish but I have a hard time understanding why it have more subs than the rest of the MMOs together.

Of course is the two games I ever hated Microsofts old Flight simulater game (the first, you couldn't land in it, I spent so much wasted time and they just kept quit about it) and the horrid mess they made of Shadowrun, my favorite RPG game.

Originally posted by Loke666

I don't hate it but I don't think it is that great either.

Most of the gameplay is just too easy for me and I think the lore could have been better written. It have some good points too of course like the polish but I have a hard time understanding why it have more subs than the rest of the MMOs together.

Of course is the two games I ever hated Microsofts old Flight simulater game (the first, you couldn't land in it, I spent so much wasted time and they just kept quit about it) and the horrid mess they made of Shadowrun, my favorite RPG game.

I can say I don't hate it either, I believe it can do better and its really lacking in quality as the company works towards catering and retaining a broad audience. The game constantly gets simplified and simplified over again and it does become too easy, less of a challenge. I agree with another above poster on the Alts where you don't really have a character that is uniquely you that people know (oh thats Jairoe, he one crazy sonuvab-- you get the idea). Another thing with Blizzard, they are starting to head into this trend of reusing their old ideas and it makes the new content, not as fresh as it once was. How many instances have been redone like 2 or 3 times over already and it was passed as "new content". To me, nothing about ToC is new, not even the jousting (I have been doing so much of it in the dailies already). These 1 room instances are looking lazier and lazier as they reuse the concept more and more. 

Then when we want anything that is really new, it has to be released on an expansion where we have to pay $10 more than the usual price for a PC game expansion and sub on top of that. They can only do it now because they can get away with it, but I think it'll have an impact on the perception of Blizzard's MMO's in the long run for the future. 

Imagine your 16 years old and you work really hard one summer to save up for a car. At the end of the summer you finally have enough to buy a car. The one you get is a peice of junk but you love it because you worked so hard for it. You cruise around in your car for another year or so until it finally breaks down. Even though your angry it broke down after a couple of years you still enjoyed the time you had with it.

You have a little brother, and we he turns 16 you expect that he is going to have to work hard to buy a car also but instead he is given one. It's not just some junk car, your Dad gets him a new Mustang. He acts completely ungrateful about it and wrecks the car that month. He then has the nerve to ask for another one, but your Dad gives in and buys him another one.

I think players are given way to much and are spoiled in WoW. A lot of them didn't play oldstyle MMO's partly because they were too young, and MMORPG's didn't become mainstream until WoW.

I hate it because it made the genre mainstream, causing the focus to shift from community and roleplaying to action and stats. There is still a lot to love though in my opinion.

Don't hate it but can't bring myself to play it anymore either.  Its just dated.  Loads of content and lots of it is thematic but its just so ugly.  TorchLight is also artistic but I don't mind because I'm zoomed out enough that all I really see are the really well done particles.

WoW is hardly the only game to fall into the dated category though.          

Personally I don't hate WOW.

I think it's had it's day, and it would be nice to see some of that vast population spread out amongst other games.

I'm not sure how healthy it is for the genre to have such a big piece of the pie all in one game.

I dont hate WOW or dislike WOW as it was my 1st MMO.  The hatred on WOW imo is irrational.

Many people consider WOW or Blizzard the "evil empire" of the MMO industry much like the New York Yankee of baseball or the Duke Blue Devils of College basketball. When your on top it seems everyone hates you unfortunately.

(AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH raises plunger in salute to the New York Yankees worls series champions)

I don't hate WoW. I'm just tired of it right now. I'm going to resub when Cata comes out. Probably will make at least 1 Worgen and Goblin.

I don't really hate the game, but I dislike how much time you have to invest in it. Another turnoff is that a vast majority of players know the game in and out, and have a giant advantage over newbies such as myself. If I took the time to do everything I needed to do and learned the game properly, chances are I'd enjoy it more. But I don't like spending too much time on a single game.

Few people really hate WOW, however many people will criticize it, especially in response to pro-WOW posts that tout it as the greatest game ever.

Most of the discussion is just differences in player preferences.  I personally don't care for its core design, including the focus on questing to advance my character, the item centric/replace regularly looting philosphy (Tier 10 armor, c'mon now) the PVP that lacks any real risk/reward and has little impact on the gamewrold.

Doesn't mean WOW's a bad game, there are many more follks who enjoy the features I listed above and is why they play it.

   I really don't hate it either. I'm more bored with it . Its very bland at the endgame. You either do instances for gear over and over, raid, or faction grind. They still haven't reached that level of variety that they should have years ago seeing as the games they set out to outsell already offered variety in your choices of where to go or what to do. In the same respect you have to give them credit, they produced a game that crippled the competition. They played to their strengths and brought a game that had a strong IP backing and made it widely available and virtually removed the grind of all the other games to a simple quest and level format.

I didn't hate it untill I tried it.  It's not so much that I hate the game in the way you might hate a person but I did hate playing it and I hate the way it changed mmorpgs.

I'm not sure "hate" is the right word.  Truthfully the game is pretty good.  I think what people "hate" about it is the blind loyalty that it engenders in so many who have never tried anything else in the MMO genre.  A times it seems like masses of people consume it simply because they've been told it's the best and they don't need to try anything else.

I always say WoW is like vanilla ice cream.  If you've never had ice cream before and someone hands you a cup of vanilla ice cream you're like "wow!  This stuff is great!"  Vanilla is that flavor that everyone can eat.  However some people have sampled other things and they've decided they prefer Rocky Road.  The trouble comes when someone says, "Hey, you've got to try this Rocky Road!  It's fantastic!" and the response they get is, "Why would anyone every want anything except vanilla, you rube?"

In the end it's like hating Microsoft, the big bad bully in the room that everyone resents, especially when everyone else who comes along tries to copy the bully by making more vanilla in an attempt to woo away the vanilla eating crowd.  People who like other flavors get to feeling like the selection is being limited due to the mass success of vanilla.

Now I want ice cream.