Steve Danuser over at Moorgard brought this to my attention this morning. After I checked the calendar to make sure this wasn’t another Pandaren April Fools joke from Blizzard, I just let my jaw hang there for a minute. Then I just HAD to write about it.
Evidently, Blizzard has seen fit to introduce a new mount for the upcoming WotLK expansion. What is it? Well what do you need to jump a shark? That’s right, you need a motorcycle. And that is what Blizzard is delivering. No word on whether or not there will be any Harley Davidson cross promotion, or if it comes with leathers and some new ink.
Seriously, how much farther out of a fantasy world do they intend to draw us? Well, not far for me. Like Moorgard, not this far. I won’t be trying WotLK either. Besides all the other problems that WoW has that have driven Tarkheena and me from the game, seeing stuff like this just lets me know that we made the right decision to /unsubscribe.
Here is the direct link to the images.
Blizzard, is this really what your customers want? If it is, I think it’s an illustration that WoW is a pop-culture game and not a fantasy game at all any more. All of the lampooning and all of the places that WoW has turned up (South Park, commercials, etc.) have finally struck a fatal blow against my willing suspension of disbelief.
Thank God that Warhammer has someone watching over the lore as to not let something like this happen.
Motorcycles? In a “fantasy” MMO? I’m going to just say no.
You gotta be kidding me.
WoW was a fantasy game?
Between this and the hiring of mercenaries now in EQ1, it seems that the true ‘difficult’ fantasy days are long gone…
Well, this is going to sound harsh..but you are starting to sound like all the fanbois who took over all the Vanguard forums and AoC forums. The ones that attacked anyone who mentioned they played WoW. Who went on rants spouting about how great GameX is/was compared to WoW, who immediately crucified anyone who admitted to liking WoW, etc. I think you might know who/what I mean.
I am NOT saying that is your intent. And I apologize of this is offending anyone because that is NOT my intent. Just saying it seems quite a few bloggers who have made it known they are going to Warhammer have started making a habit of bashing WoW. Almost as if they are trying to justify the switch.
I am pretty sure you are not a fanboi(girl)..and that you don’t intend to come across as such. But that is the first thing I thought of when I saw this post (and the posts of a few other bloggers) recently.
The epic helicopter was my last personal goal before I finally left Warcraft. I spent a lot of time and money to get that done and I considered it a great accomplishment (similar to my druid getting the epic flight form). It’s a good thing they own their own IP and can do what they want with things. I agree that their own lore has taken a back seat to their need to create filler for their players.
I have one thing to say: space ship.
@Jdjdjd
I’m not that guy, and frankly I don’t see how posting a criticism of something that is as much as an anachronism as this is making me a fanboi WoW basher. If anything, I’d say you come across as a little defensive.
If there is criticism of particulars in a game and they are being expressed by “quite a few bloggers,” maybe there is something to them.
As someone close to me once told me. “If it seems like all the people around you are wrong, maybe it’s not them.”
As for the premise that WoW is in the process of “jumping the shark,” the symbolism was way too rich for me to ignore. It IS a freaking motorcycle for God’s sake. How could I NOT comment on it?
As I stated (multiple times which you apparently ignored). I did not think that was your intention or accuse you of being one. In fact I’m pretty sure I said I thought you weren’t. But the paralel is hard to escape. Even now in your response. No where did I defend WoW or even say that I had a different opinion then you, but I was immediately ‘bashed’ as being defensive. Seems to mirror the flavor of silky venom back in the day. And I know you were there and saw it.
Where in my post did I say you were? I said the ‘flavor’ of blog posts from certain bloggers was starting to lean that way. If you can’t see then I’m sorry. I thought maybe you could be a little objective. The jumping the shark comparison was funny but not really what I was getting at. The way it was presented still seems ‘off’. And YOUR defensiveness adds to it abit.
To answer a couple of unanswered questions.
Yes, I’m in the beta. Yes, I will be going to that game. No, I don’t play WoW anymore.
All I was trying to do was point out the way something ‘sounded’ and to give the opportunity to clarify as to whether that is what was actually meant or not.
I guess I got my answer.
LOL well OK then.
One last thing and then I’m done and won’t stay where I’m not welcome. To use your quote from a friend. I can think of many people on some of those websites who would immediately bash anyone not of thier opinion. If I am one and they were few does that automatically make them right just because they are more?
I have always enjoyed reading your blog. I found this after reading you in back when I played Vanguard. I seem to recall you saying something about the community surrounding Vanguard at least once and how unwelcoming it was to newcomers. I was hoping that would not develope as badly with Warhammer. So if I am defensive it is over this new game and not the old.
And now I get to apologize for some really bad grammer. Multi-tasking at work and posting is something I am apparenlty incapable of.
I don’t like spaceships or aliens in my MMOs but by god I do appreciate a little steampunk every once and awhile. Now if I ever see a Tacoma truck in the game for real then I wash my hands of it.
I can see the steampunk angle, and I like that about gnomes in MMO’s. To me this was just a little much. As far as the spaceships and aliens and all, that really made me feel like the lore meant very little.
Steampunk, though. Hell yeah. Doing it old school like in Ak’Anon.
I don’t like the motorcycle either. However, I love the mechanostrider (the robotic chickens that Dwarves and Gnomes can ride). In that context, the motorcycle makes me wonder if Blizzard is starting to run out of clever ideas and as Genda speculates, whether Blizzard is starting to raid pop culture instead.
From a higher perspective though, I think when you have the equivalent of 80 levels, 8 classes, 3 “specializations” per class, and… four (?) professions, it would be excruciatingly difficult to stick with a single genre for the duration. There just aren’t that many fantasy cliches, or even sci-fi ones for that matter that you can exploit. Take Age of Conan for example. As gifted as Robert E. Howard was, he’d be hard pressed to come up with as many variations on the “oooh, look, a dragon! stabby! stabby!” theme.
After thinking about it further, I think that’s going to be true of every MMO out there.
Start to raid pop culture? They didn’t stop in the first place.
Wait…didn’t Fonzi jumped the shark on water skis…. ah, but he was wearing his leather motorcycle jacket when he did it.
@shoe
That’s right, I stand corrected.
Everquest 1 has just announced its fifteenth expansion and has never had to jump off the track this far to try and give players ‘filler’.
I dont think the WoW-bashing as it is sometimes referred to is about upping the new game and putting down the old as much as it is ‘Why is that game popular when X game is newer/better/more etc.’.
Fantasy players tend to be defensive about their chosen type of game. Look at die hard Dungeons and Dragons pen and paper players with the new edition of that game and it makes the ‘WoW bashing’ look quite tame. When something from outside the standards of Tolkien/DnD fantasy is introduced it usually is met with some resistance.
Personally I think the gnomes in WoW are done a bit overboard. I like gnomes and tinkering, but there is a fine line when gunpowder and overly complex tech is introduced that I find partially annoying.
Breltar:
I thought Everquest 1 was the first MMO to jump the shark? At least I remember a lot of fans complaining about the extra-dimensional beings in the Gates of Dischord and Omens of War expansions.
I guess I don’t really mind the motorcycle cause I remember having Gryocopters in the Warcraft 2 game. On a technological scale I think a helicopter is a little more advanced then a motorcycle. Maybe the problem is they didn’t “gnome” it up enough. The Gryocopter definitely looks steampunk while the motorcycle looks like what Harrison Ford and Sean Connery rode in the last good Indiana Jones movie.
EQ1 ‘jumped the shark’ more by putting in easier ways to get around and the whole moon areas rather than the aliens. GoD and OoW were not great expansions, but I feel it was even before that with the Luclin expansion when EQ1 started going downhill fairly quick.
Oddly enough, since then there have been way easier games that have come out and been extremely well received. I guess times change and thats the way it works though.
I completely agree with the ‘gnome it up’ comment though, as if it had a big boiler as a side car and steam train style pistons it would probably be better received.
Not my cup of tea, though it was the crayola style colors in WoW that turned me off way before this current set up.
Not to beat a dead horse, but EQ1 jumped the shark with Luclin. Moon travel? Weird alien beings with temples? A Moon that has atmosphere in some places and not in others? It was just so off the wall and strange it really threw me off the immersion train and made it no longer the world of Norrath.
In the case of WoW, I’m not sure that motorcycles are totally out of the scope of the Warcraft universe, though. Gnomes have always been the steampunk characters in Warcraft (props for pointing that out, Relmstein). In other words, the Warcraft universe has never been totally fantasy to begin with. Diablo? Absolutely, totally fantasy. Starcraft? Totally sci-fi. But Warcraft was a weird hybrid.
Yeah, I don’t play WoW, but I did religiously play War 1, 2, and 3 and I don’t see this development as all that unconventional for the universe.
Something to remember, your first paragraph determines how people read what you write as it sets the entire tone. That is why effective criticism usually begins with something they did right.
I thought the “kindly space demons” crash landing into Azeroth and joining the alliance was pretty dumb personally.
I also thought the Blood Elves having a god in their basement strapped in and powering all their paladins was pretty dumb, and utterly unnecessary since Horde Priests have always been able to use holy magic.
However my gut reaction to the Hog is much worse, personally. At the very least it needs to have an appearance that will fit the setting better. I think really think they dropped the ball on art direction, which is usually one of WoW’s strong points.
Agree with some of the other posters — the motorcycle is too 1940′s and not steampunk enough for my personal taste. I have no interest in getting one.
That said, I predict it will be extremely popular with players who are engineers, just like gyrocopters were in BC. And engineers have always been able to make very non-fantasy items like guns, scopes, teleporters, robots, so I really don’t see too many WoW players falling over in outrage at this addition. Likewise their inclusion of pop culture references is everywhere in the game and apparently that’s worked pretty well for the last 4 years.
While a good setup for a joke at their expense, the addition of a motorcycle is hardly a “smoking gun” for WoW jumping the shark. Overall, WotLK is stepping back from the more scifi environments they introduced in BC, which I think will please a lot of the 10M+ playerbase. It certainly won’t continue to grow forever, but I think it’s likely to continue to age very well for few more years, very slowly shedding customers to new MMOs.
@Pidge
I agree. I don’t think there are going to be a lot of people leaving over the motorcycles. I just see it as the beginning of the end for them, creatively. I don’ think their market share is in peril.
I’d rather prefer that blizzard did’nt go out of their way to make their game less unique than its already stale recycled self. With their target audience and the kind of players that play WoW en millions, this kind of lore breaking piece of flash is “cool”. The only people I know drive these mobile armchairs in real life are men in a midlife crisis still trying to prop up their ego with whatever overpriced fad is in fashion.