5punkcraft - Doan It Rong
Posted: June 16th, 2009, 12:07
World of Warcraft has a certain stigma attached. Home of the obsessive nerd, here on 5punk it was ostracised for a long time. Even after a few of us had played it, it remained taboo. The reasons for peoples' wariness of it are many; people get addicted, lose their jobs, their girlfriends and their money. People become obsessive nerds, arguing over undecipherable stats. Others become insufferable fanboys, deriding all other games as shadows of the almighty WoW. Some are put off by childish graphics, simple gameplay, or vast hordes or tardspeaking lolkids. The list goes on (and feel free to add your own).
My own experiences of the game, initially, didn't do too much to dissuade me from these opinions of it. My review outlines the good and bad aspects of the game as I saw them after 10 days. However, re-reading what I wrote there I noticed that a lot of the issues mentioned have improved greatly in the last few years. There are still idiots, probably more than there were back then, but the game itself is more geared for the non-hardcore than it ever was.
So, why has World of Warcraft caught on with 5punkers now, when once it ws so derided? Well aside from almost all the criticisms of my review being addressed, we play it our own way. 5punk have descended upon Warcraft and are doing it wrong. We don't care about stats, or guides, or speed levelling. We do high level content like a herd of cats, and laugh in the face of death. Literally, and often. We've gone to those areas frequented by the hardcore and the l33t, and worn ballgowns. Allow me to elaborate.
A normal person playing Warcraft will likely play on their own for most of the time. They'll be confused, alone, surrounded by idiots. Eventually they'll start teaming up with idiots to do the harder instances, and there'll be a combination of the idiots who are clueless and get everyone killed, the idiots who are selfish and want all the rewards to themselves, the idiots who know what they're doing and criticise everyone who isn't as 'l33t' as they are, and any combination of some or all of the above. Many will conform or quit. Those who survive will, eventually, become mathematicians. Their characters are products of a myriad of forums and formulae, and the things they do are paint-by-numbers repetition in order to get the next piece of equipment a website tells them they need.
5punkcraft, on the other hand is subtlely different. You'll still start off clueless, but you'll have 5punkers at hand to offer advice on request. Make your own mistakes, it's fun, and don't be told how to play your own character. Join random groups if you like, or don't. You can solo your way through the entire game to level 80 without too much effort, or you can sometimes team up with a few 5punkers with similarly levelled alts. Play what you like. There's no wrong class. In fact, we're realising that every single class can be soloed through the game, and every 5punker has a personal preference as to which class they prefer. Should you finally get that character to (or close to) the level cap, you'll be able to join in our impromtu dungeon hacks. Again, we don't care how you play, or what you play. Where other groups will only take certain classes, built a specific way, and with a specific quality of equipment, we don't give a shit. What's the worst that can happen? We all die, and we do that perfectly well on our own. Ironically, Blizzard seem to be of a similar attitude to us. All too often we encounter something daft or just bizarre that seems to cater to our sense of humour, but that also seems to be lost on most players. Don't worry Blizz, we get it.
So what was the point of all this? Well bluntly, we want more people to play with. More banter in our chat channel, more silly dancing and gesturing when we randomly meet each other in a city, and ultimately more people to do our dungeon hacking with. It doesn't really matter how long you've been playing when all your delights come from 5punky conversations and public silliness. With a real lack of decent games around at the moment there's not a lot else which is getting 5punkers gaming together. Unfortunately the trial isn't a great example of how we play, because it excludes you from the guild and chat channels, but don't be fooled by that.
TLDR?
The short version is, we've made the game 5punky by doing it wrong and still succeeding, and by doing it as 5punkers, we've avoided most of the reasons not to play.
Curious? Ask here for an honest answer. Played long ago, or never could bring yourself? It's probably not what you expect.
My own experiences of the game, initially, didn't do too much to dissuade me from these opinions of it. My review outlines the good and bad aspects of the game as I saw them after 10 days. However, re-reading what I wrote there I noticed that a lot of the issues mentioned have improved greatly in the last few years. There are still idiots, probably more than there were back then, but the game itself is more geared for the non-hardcore than it ever was.
So, why has World of Warcraft caught on with 5punkers now, when once it ws so derided? Well aside from almost all the criticisms of my review being addressed, we play it our own way. 5punk have descended upon Warcraft and are doing it wrong. We don't care about stats, or guides, or speed levelling. We do high level content like a herd of cats, and laugh in the face of death. Literally, and often. We've gone to those areas frequented by the hardcore and the l33t, and worn ballgowns. Allow me to elaborate.
A normal person playing Warcraft will likely play on their own for most of the time. They'll be confused, alone, surrounded by idiots. Eventually they'll start teaming up with idiots to do the harder instances, and there'll be a combination of the idiots who are clueless and get everyone killed, the idiots who are selfish and want all the rewards to themselves, the idiots who know what they're doing and criticise everyone who isn't as 'l33t' as they are, and any combination of some or all of the above. Many will conform or quit. Those who survive will, eventually, become mathematicians. Their characters are products of a myriad of forums and formulae, and the things they do are paint-by-numbers repetition in order to get the next piece of equipment a website tells them they need.
5punkcraft, on the other hand is subtlely different. You'll still start off clueless, but you'll have 5punkers at hand to offer advice on request. Make your own mistakes, it's fun, and don't be told how to play your own character. Join random groups if you like, or don't. You can solo your way through the entire game to level 80 without too much effort, or you can sometimes team up with a few 5punkers with similarly levelled alts. Play what you like. There's no wrong class. In fact, we're realising that every single class can be soloed through the game, and every 5punker has a personal preference as to which class they prefer. Should you finally get that character to (or close to) the level cap, you'll be able to join in our impromtu dungeon hacks. Again, we don't care how you play, or what you play. Where other groups will only take certain classes, built a specific way, and with a specific quality of equipment, we don't give a shit. What's the worst that can happen? We all die, and we do that perfectly well on our own. Ironically, Blizzard seem to be of a similar attitude to us. All too often we encounter something daft or just bizarre that seems to cater to our sense of humour, but that also seems to be lost on most players. Don't worry Blizz, we get it.
So what was the point of all this? Well bluntly, we want more people to play with. More banter in our chat channel, more silly dancing and gesturing when we randomly meet each other in a city, and ultimately more people to do our dungeon hacking with. It doesn't really matter how long you've been playing when all your delights come from 5punky conversations and public silliness. With a real lack of decent games around at the moment there's not a lot else which is getting 5punkers gaming together. Unfortunately the trial isn't a great example of how we play, because it excludes you from the guild and chat channels, but don't be fooled by that.
TLDR?
The short version is, we've made the game 5punky by doing it wrong and still succeeding, and by doing it as 5punkers, we've avoided most of the reasons not to play.
Curious? Ask here for an honest answer. Played long ago, or never could bring yourself? It's probably not what you expect.
All of that, sorta.