Where is the line where If you don't like something, WoW is not for you?

I think it's reasonable to claim that Blizzard has tried to make their game appeal to a wide audience, and their massive number of subscribers attests to their success in that department. One of the things that I would argue made Wrath of the Lich King a successful expansion pack was that it opened raiding to a wider swath of WoW's playerbase, and though that did have potentially negative repercussions for the solo content, considering that WoW's primary focus is on raiding, I'd say that it was a good change in the grand scheme of things. Of course, WoW cannot be everything for everyone, so a line must be drawn somewhere between trying to increase the game's appeal and simply saying, "If you don't like X, then WoW is not for you."

But where is that line to be drawn? I ask because four days ago on WoW.com's Q&A column The Queue, Alex Ziebart answered a commenter's question about the complex and bombastic nature of the design of high end gear by saying this: "The Warcraft aesthetic is all about those huge shoulders, the random spikes, the intricate little decorations on each pauldron. In Azeroth, bigger is better. Bigger is much better. Having that massive gear is prestigious. The stripped-down gear is for nameless schmucks that haven't fought a proper battle in their lives. If you're looking for a simpler aesthetic, you're really better off looking at a different game. I don't mean that in a rude or smug way in the slightest. It just isn't Blizzard's style. It definitely isn't Warcraft's style."

While I agree with Alex's claim that WoW's style is one where bigger is better, something about the answer just doesn't sit right with me. Is WoW really the kind of game where something like the look of gear can be a game breaker? Where if someone doesn't like something as simple as aesthetics, that means they shouldn't play the game? I won't spend much time considering the spiky-ness of gear as I look at this issue, for I am the kind of person who never paid much attention to aesthetic considerations like that (though I suppose it helped that the old Night Elf Cat Form model had a certain timeless beauty to its design). I'll just say that this issue could perhaps be solved by Blizzard adding armor skins to the online store, if only to change the way your armor looks to you, while not changing the way it looks to everyone else.

With that issue out of the way, we must look at two conflicting facts and how they affect the issue of where the line should be drawn where if you don't like a part of WoW, then WoW isn't for you. One, video game design is an art-form. Two, Blizzard is a for-profit company. As I said in my post on whether Blizzard should be more loyal to their fan-base or the lore, video games are a form of art, and thus they have all of the responsibilities of an art-form: they should "challenge our perceptions, our beliefs, and make us ask questions about ourselves." While I was referring to the storyline when I first made that statement, the same rule applies once we stop reading the lore and pick up the keyboard. Unfortunately, games like WoW are only possible because they are big business, and it's the profits WoW generates that allow it to continue to exist. It's because money makes the world go round (sadly) that most contemporary art (at least, most successful contemporary art) sacrifices artistic merit for popular appeal.

Why do I bring up these issues? I bring them up because widening the game's appeal is a good move commercially and increases WoW's popular appeal, but may not be a good move artistically. After all, widening the game's appeal is usually done by loosening the standards that players need to fit before they can see certain content, and that means less challenge for the players. Now, if the lore of WoW is supposed to challenge our perceptions, then the gameplay must, by reasonable extension, challenge us. However, most of the things that Blizzard has done to widen WoW's appeal has taken some of the challenge out of the game: shrinking raid sizes, reducing the number of consumables by removing sharpening stones and oils, allowing the use of heroics to gear up so plays can skip entire tiers of raiding, etc.

Of course, what some would call taking challenge out of the game, others would call removing needless barriers. Though my experience with raiding is pretty scant, what I do know is that raiding is still a challenge; that has not changed since the days of Molten Core. What has changed is that the challenge is now mostly in movement and strategy, not in the logistics of organizing and buffing forty people. When you think about it that way, you could say that WoW has struck a balance between the two aforementioned issues (art vs. profit). Blizzard has managed to increase WoW's commercial appeal without sacrificing the things that make it a truly great game. They have increased its allure without sacrificing its character. It might not be a very impressive conclusion to come to, but I think we can conclude that any change that increases WoW's appeal without alienating those who already play by sacrificing the game's merit is a good change.

My musings on micro-transactions

Considering what a hot-button issue this is, I knew I'd have to address it eventually. The Celestial Steed is now available in the Blizzard store, and it is the first mount available to those willing to shell out the cash for one. Since this is the first time Blizzard has added a mount to their store, a certain amount of backlash is to be expected, at the very least from the "they changed it, now it sucks" crowd. But how much of this backlash is warranted?

One of the most reasonable arguments against the selling of the Celestial Steed is that it allows people to save on gold by not needing to buy mounts for their alts. While this is true, it is also a necessity in order for the mount to be sold in the first place, unless Blizzard were to set up a system where you needed to have another mount of a certain riding level to use the Celestial Steed at the level. This issue partially solves itself in that if a player uses the Celestial Steed to save money on mounts, it will lose its coolness appeal, which was, after all, the original reason to buy it. While that doesn't negate the argument that people are still buying utility, I'd say it's a relatively fair trade.

Of course, the real question is, should people be able to buy cool looking mounts? They've been doing it through the trading card game for years; Blizzard just decided that they would like to get a bit of the profits. While the trading card mounts may not be very different functionally from the Celestial Steed, the trading card mounts were made to create an incentive for WoW players to get into the WoW trading card game, while the Blizzard store provides no such incentive for WoW players to try something new. For that reason, the two are not quite analogous, so the fact that the community finds one acceptable doesn't mean it should accept the other one.

As I said in my post on the Violet Proto-Drake, there is a distinct difference between aesthetic rewards and practical rewards, and it's difficult to compare the two. Many mounts are aesthetic rewards, in that they serve the same functionality as the gryphons/wind riders you can buy relatively cheaply from mount keepers, yet their looks are symbolic of the effort you have put forth to acquire them. It's generally agreed among players the harder something is to get, the cooler it should look. While it is a logical fallacy to assume that if that fact is true then the reverse must also be true, most players are the under the impression that the cooler something looks, the harder it should be to get. That is one of the reason why many are so indignant about this mount being sold in the store for anyone who can afford to fork over the cash for it: the ratio of effort to reward is simply minuscule. Players would probably be equally indignant if a 280%-speed version of the Ashes of Alar became available to anyone who killed Kael'thas Sunstrider in Magister's Terrace; though the original mount would still confer an objective advantage to those who own it, the coolness factor would be lost.

But is it reasonable for the community to always expect that the coolness of a reward be proportionate to the effort it takes to get it? Coolness is in the eye of the beholder (I, for example, think that the Sprite Darter Hatchling is the coolest pet in my collection, though I have many other pets that others would consider cooler), so if the community looks down upon an aesthetic reward because it doesn't take much effort to acquire, the coolness factor will be lost, which will help to keep things even. In that respect, the issue of the ratio of coolness to effort is a somewhat self-correcting issue. Of course, as the comments on the WoW.com posts considering the Celestial Steed have shown, many people who buy the Celestial Steed derive its coolness for themselves within themselves, rather than by the community's opinions, so they are not subject to this self-correcting.

It is here where I draw the line for further consideration of the issue. I am very much a "live and let live" kind of person, and to consider whether a person is justified in finding something cool (which is, after all, a subjective issue) is not something I am comfortable doing. Were this a factual or logical issue, I would consider it without hesitation, but considering the ground I would tread by philosophizing something as subjective as personal coolness, I'd rather just halt right here.