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Right, I let this go on for long enough, as I thought someone would jump in. Now I am going to point a few things out myself.

I am going to try and point these out in the order of the people making the comments, If i feel there was adequate rebuttal to something later on in the thread, I will skip over what they said. If not, I'm about to contest it here.

Firstly, This has gone very much of topic. Not only did it START with Grafin immediately criticizing the game, it the took some time to get off criticizing the game, the players and people who spend to much time on the computer. As of me writing this, It has even veered away from the game itself.

Now,
Grafin wrote: "I tried it and gave up after 5 min, I couldn't stand it"
before someone criticizes something, i always make sure they have tried it, because without actually having sampled the product you have no basis for your criticisms, your either just making assumptions based on your own prejudices or repeating the opinion of someone else. I cant fault Grafin for actually having tried to play it, but criticizing the game so heavily based on, in his own words, 5 minutes of play? World of Warcraft is a massively immersive online game and players are given a 10 day free trial to get the hang of the game. 10 Days. If your trial for the game, to see if you like it, is 10 days, then it is NOT reasonable to assume you can judge it based on the microscopic portion you have tried in 5 minutes. New players are barely expected to have grasped the most basic control in the game in 5 minutes.

To compare, playing world of Warcraft for 5 minutes, (Whether or not you were speaking literally or figuratively, I'm still going to assume it was a very small amount of time) is like reviewing the novels War and Peace, Wuthering Heights, or even the Darren Shan novels after reading five words, five sentences, or even five pages. Its not a fair reflection of the complete work.


Grafin wrote: "I know, but I had to have my little rant because I don't see the point of sinking time and money into something that isn't productive."

I would contest this on the basis that not everything we do and enjoy is productive, yet we still sink time and money into it. Watch a film. Play cards. Listen to music. These things are generally not productive. Yes, for some people, or to achieve a specific purpose these things can be productive, but to the general populous they are not. Watching a documentary on whales may teach you something about sea life, but more often then not, the film you watch might be Die Hard 3, or a James Bond film. Some people play cards for a living, but most people don't make any money out of cards. Listening to music can be helpful to people who play instruments, or musicians making albums, but most of the populace listen to music to entertain themselves when they're doing something else that doesn't require 100% of their attention.

Similarly, for most of the population, WOW is not productive, other then to, like music, films and countless other hobbies, relieve stress and act as a form of entertainment. At the same time, for a small percentage of people, WOW can make them some money, or helps them be productive in many other ways. For example, there are a lot of well programmed freely available mods for WOW. This means that somebody somewhere practised their programming skills and wrote a programme to work with World Of Warcraft. I would consider this very productive.

Sorrow wrote: "So many people with high levels accounts are making gold(whatever the in-game currency is) and selling it for real cash!"

There you go, that's productive! Although, whilst yes, there ARE people who sell in game gold for cash, these tend to be low level gold farmers with multiple accounts. Rarely do the highest levels sell there gold. People who play enough to become high level tend to value their gold and items more then the cash they would make from them. ( At least, so has been my experience in World Of Warcraft anyway. I'm aware this is debatable.)

Sorrow wrote: "This has actually been outlawed in places like China for obvious reasons."

Sorrow, what are these obvious reasons? The ban has been imposed for several reasons, not least of which is that gold farming is banned under Blizzards terms of use policy. As you can see here between 80 to 85% of the current gold farming is suspected to occur in China. China has banned it as it is an unregulated industry employing what amounts to slave labourers and because its annual income is unregulated, and therefore can be used to fund crime. This ban has nothing to do with actually playing ANY online game, nor the existence of online games themselves, as china has similar problems with other underground networks supplying forged and counterfeit goods such as Razors, Pens, Trainers and many other items. It has been outlawed as it was impossible to shut down and arrest these people as before the ban, they were not doing anything illegal. the worst they could expect is a ban from Blizzard for breaching their Terms Of Use.

Sorrow wrote: "So many people pour there lives into WoW, it can become like a actual job with new friends and your character personality. Many people get so wrapped up in these games that they lose the ability to interact in normal life as these games cater for everything at a click of a mouse."

Find me a statistic from a reliable and well researched source. Then we can debate this.

Sorrow wrote: "MMORPG's are fairly new to the world and the long-term mental side affects are still to be learnt. "

As are mobile phones, some medical treatments, televisions, microwaves, blue-tooth, infra red technology, social networking sites......

Heck, plastic, online message boards and the Internet itself if you want to really go for it. All relatively new to the world, all with varying side effects. Don't single out MMORPGS with an argument that applies to almost all technology we use every day. (Incidentally, for the long term medical side effects of anything to be fully and comprehensively studied they need to be examined over hundred of thousands of cases over several generations. That's why I've included some technology's that are older then most of you. They still cannot have been 100% fully tested because the effects into old age and into new generations cant have been documented yet.)

Skin wrote: "World Of Warcraft has a lot of things (for lack of a better world) that occupy the user so there is no real need for a "real" life. You can do pretty much the same on WoW as in real life. So I can imagine a lot of people not going out xD"

Just because there is a lot to do does not mean it replaces someones life, and i can think of hundreds of things you cant do in WOW that you A) Want and B) Have to do in real life. Disneyland has allot of things that occupy the visitor. You can do pretty much the same things in Disneyland as you can do anywhere else in real life. This doesn't stop people going anywhere else.

Morgan wrote: "I use to play the warcraft games with my brother and dad.
My brother plays WoW
I call it World of Warcrap.
I hate it.
As soon as a start a little download, or even open a couple of browsers, he goes crazy, saying that I'm making his game lag too much.

He use to make me play runescape just so he could get more gold or w/e -.-*

I am against WoW and any other online games ^o)

They consume your life. "

All I'm going to say about this is its a bias against online games based on your own experiences. It cant reasonably be considered a valid reason for the majority to condemn the game.

Morgan wrote:" Take up reading. Its better."

Why? Why is reading better? What merit does reading have over doing anything else? I assume you mean (as most other people do when they suggest reading over any other activity) that it is better because of a presumed ability for it to increase cognitive function. Well, so does video gaming. Just as much as reading.

Reading just doesn't get as much negative press. Were i to present a negative stereotype of the World Of Warcraft player (as is being presented in this thread) it would apparently be one of a social recluse who spends all their time playing World of Warcraft and none socialising. Let me, for a minute, point out another stereotype. The shy retiring person who spends their nights in reading. See a similarity? Neither are socialising, because they are spending all of their time doing something they enjoy, yet only the World Of Warcraft player is abused.

For some reason it is widely considered much more acceptable for someone to decline to go out on a Friday night, Instead opting to "stay at home and curl up with a good book" then it is for someone to decline so they can "Run Ulder with their guild and hopefully get some Epic drops". Why? What benefit does one have over the other?

The next few posts about cost etc. were debated fairly thoroughly so I'm just going to point this out

Grafin wrote:"I wasn't really ranting about casual gamers (and with the conversions between UK and Canadian currency, it's about 50 here..), I was targeting gamers that spend weeks on end playing these games."

Yes, but no-one is defending the extremists. Some people take things to far. Hundreds of Thousands of people enjoy a few drinks on a night out and that's cool, a few people become alcoholics and that's not cool. Whose fault is that? The Alcohols, or the person who drinks so much he blacks out? Don't hate the game, Hate the player.

Izzik wrote:"And without WoW we'd probably interact with each other socially less, because we couldn't spend the money to see each other."

I just want to back this up. I cant afford to spend the money doing things with my friends every night. All forms of entertainment cost money, the question is how much. As has been pointed out, it is way cheaper to play wow a few nights a week then to spend those same nights going to a film, or in the bar, or clubbing. Even if we stay in and socialise generally we want something to do, so we have to rent a movie, or buy a few drinks. Other options are available, depending on several factors. How many of us there are, the weather, who feels like doing what etc. One of those options is WOW. Yes, to play WOW to the exclusion of all else is unhealthy, but you cant criticize the game for that. Playing chess to the exclusion of doing anything else would be unhealthy, and you cant blame the game for that.

From here the post moves away from even talking about MMORPGS.

I have been playing wow for the best part of 3 to 4 years.

I have some incredible memories with my friends on it.

I have a Dwarven Paladin who has witnessed some incredible things.

I am a gamer, and there is no way you will ever convince me that what i love to do is wrong.


P.S. It is very, very late here, so im not sure how cohesive this is, but i will happily clarify and back up anything anyone would care to debate. It is also late enough that I am forced to trust this boards spell check system, and i fear it may butcher my spelling. If it does, i apologise.

Ah, I wasn't really ticked off about the conversation going off topic. It was more a case of me being irritated at the seeming negativity produced by my inquiry. I was really only lashing out at it because i was ranting.

I see where your coming from on the books issue.

However, I wasn't suggesting that video games can or should replace reading. I read heavily and would encourage people to pick up a book from time to time. I was pointing out that you cant suggest that reading is 'better' then playing video games. Different yes, Better no.

Although, Now that you mention it, I don't see why a variety of video games shouldn't teach you exactly the same values and lessons as books. I mean, so many video games can teach you morality for example. The difference between right and wrong is clearly laid out in say, Fable. You can choose between Good and Evil and the consequences vary wildly depending on your choice, but there ARE clear consequences.

Many games feature a lot of background and filler text. You cant make it through Fallout 3 without doing some reading for example. To go an extremist view, I don't see why text based adventures wouldn't improve your reading and vocabulary just as much as a book would.

Anyway, as i said, the point was that reading is not necessarily better, just different. I thought id throw up a few benefits of Video gaming, The Video gaming industry and the video gaming community whilst i was here anyway. Anyone interested feel free to check this, this and this out.Its nothing specific, Just one or two examples of what comes with video game.

Back to WOW.

I'm a European player, and i play mostly on Outland. Its a PVP server that i started out in because my friends were playing on it. The first character i ever made is on it. Althor, Level 70 Dwarven Pally. Man, I've had some fun with him. I haven't played the game since the Wrath of the Lich King Beta closed, because i was lucky enough to get in and see alot of the content. After that, Well, I took a break and just haven't gotten back into it. I think i might slide back into it casually in the next few weeks though, but I might leave it till after Christmas's because i have a lot of projects I'm working on between now and then...

I have a few other characters though, and i play on the RP server sometimes, but i find it tends to be much the same as the regular ones, coz the Role-playing isn't enforced really.